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(Complete Novel of the Future I 

by Frank Edward Arnold 

Also S. D. Gottesman, Robert W. 
Lowndes, Cecil Corwin and others. 





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Volume 1 — The Secret Album of Africa 
Volume 2 — The Secret Album of Europe 
Volume 3 — Tiie Secret Album of Asia 
Volume 4 — The Secret Album of America 
Volume 5 — The Secret Album of Oceania 






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VOLUME 1 



NUMBER 1 



MARCH 1941 



MECAMCA (Complete Novel) . . . .Frank Edward Arnold 
THE JIAKTIAVS ARE COMING ....Robert W. Lowndes 
MAN AND THE MACHINE (Editorial) 



CRYSTAL WORLD .John L. Chojiman 

GRAVITY REVERSED ( Article) 

THE MAN FROM THE FCTCRE Donald A. Wollheim 

RETURN FROM M-15 (Novelette) S. V. Gottesman 

THE COSMIAN LEAGUE (Department) 

PLANET LEAVE Cl if I on B. Kruse 

THE SECRET SENSE Isaac Asimov 

WORLDS IN EXILE (Poem) Ellon Y. Andrews 

THE LAST VIKING Hugh Itagmond 

AMRITION (Poem) Wilfred Owen Morlcy 

PURPLE DANDELIONS Millard Verne Gordon 

THE ROCKET (Poem) Bamon Knight 

THE REVERSIRLE REVOLUTIONS Cecil Corwin 

RIPED Basil Wells 

NEW DIRECTIONS (Article) Walter C. Davies 

THE COSMOSCOPE (Department ) 



FANTASY FAN MAGAZINES (Department) . . . 

Cover by Morey 

Interior art by Morey, Bok, Kyle, Hunt, Forte. 



G 



4G 

47 

54 

55 
58 
70 
77 
87 
05 
OG 

104 

105 
10G 
107 
117 
122 
125 
130 



DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, Editor 



JERRY AL3ERT, Man. Ed. 



All characters mentioned in the stories contained h erein are fictitious, and any similarity to actual 
persons living or dead is accidental. 



Published bi-monthly by Albing Publications. Office of publication, 1 Appleton Street, Holyoke, Mass. 
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Sexual Underdevelopment 
The Pleasure Part of Sex 

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I \* 



6 




MECANICA 



My 

fyncstk CdwGtul Arnold 

(Author of “ City of Machines,” "The Twilight People,” etc.) 

The world of the Thirfie+h Century was a world of monstrous mechanical confusion. 
Kellogg's time explorers were trapped in a jungle of man-hunting machines! 



CHAPTER I 

/ "THAT did you mean, 

Kellogg, by ‘differ- 
ent worlds'? Was it 
just a metaphor, or were you hinting 
at something?" 

Dr. • Kellogg, flushed and a little 
excited at being the lion of the oc- 
casion, glanced with pleased surprise 
at Lyle, the speaker in the big arm- 
chair, and at the ring of friendly, 
interested faces about him. A pre- 
cise, academic, self-sufficient man, he 
had realized rather late in life that 
social success is as valuable to the 
man of science as to any other. With- 
out the backing of these men, whom 
at first he had met rather against 
his will, he would never have made 
the Time Expedition on which he had 
set his heart. Enjoying this new 
sensation, he flourished his pince-nez 
with a nervous little gesture and 
beamed round. 

“The words slipped out inadver- 
tently during my speech, gentlemen," 
he addressed the well-dined and 
wined members of the Scientific Ex- 
ploration Society. “Frankly, I had not 
meant to speak of it, for the memory 
of what I saw is too terrible. But 
our friend Pascoe brought it up. 
What a magnificentf speech that was ! 



What a magnificent picture he drew 
of the triumphant civilization of the 
twenty-fifth century ! I cannot blame 
him or my other colleagues for be- 
lieving that Man of those far-off days 
to come had reached a peak of prog- 
ress from which he will never fall. 
But — gentlemen, I saw the fall. J 
remained in charge of the time- 
sphere while they explored the twen- 
ty-fifth century for their allotted 
forty-eight hours, and at that time 
I could not stand the inaction. I took 
a swift flight for a further five hun- 
dred years, and there I saw it all." 

“Saw what, man?" 

“I saw not merely the fall of that 
wonderful civilization which Pascoe 
has described, but the terrible after- 
math of it. I saw such a world as 
you have never imagined in your 
wildest nightmares, a world of mon- 
sters as was never imagined in the 
wildest mythologies. That was my 
‘different world’." 

“Remarkable !" ejaculated Pascoe, 
who was in the group, “why didn’t 
you tell us about it then, Kellogg?" 

Kellogg smiled faintly. 

“Physical courage is not one of my 
virtues, Pascoe. You and the others 
are spirited men. Had I told you of 
this world, undoubtedly you would 
have explored it. Undoubtedly you 



7 




8 



COSMIC STORIES 



would have perished in it. It is, or it 
will be, a world for men of action, not 
men of academic science. So I kept 
quiet and came back with you all to 
the safety of our own twenty-first 
century. I prefer to remain in this 
peace and quiet, having made a suc- 
cessful time flight, and to forget 
about the horrors I saw at the end 
of it. I will ask you gentlemen to 
forget about it as well.” 

“Here, hold on!” cried Lyle, for 
Kellogg was settling into an arm- 
chair with cigar and liqueur as if his 
story were over. “You can't get away 
with only half a story, even if it is a 
blood-curdler. What sort of a world 
was it ? What were these alleged mon- 
sters? And the inhabitants? Were 
they dome-headed intellectuals with 
thumping big brains, or civilized in- 
sects, or just plain cannibals? Or 
what?” 

“Yes, just what?” drawled the 
jovial Arctic explorer Farren. “Let's 
have the rest of the story, Kellogg.” 

Kellogg gestured again with his 
pince-nez. 

“I'd tell you willingly. But how 
can I expect you to believe what I 
saw when I can scarcely believe it 
myself? How can I give you a rea- 
sonable explanation when I don't un- 
derstand it either? I tell you, all 
that chaos was indescribable. It had 
to be seen to be believed.” 

“Oh, we'll believe you,” asserted 
Farren cheerfully. “After that Time 
Expedition of yours we're ready to 
believe anything. Just give us some- 
thing — a vague inkling, a rough out- 
line, general impressions — but for 
God's sake don't keep us in sus- 
pense.” 

Kellogg smiled at the other man's 
enthusiasm. 

“Very well, since you insist. But 
no more than a vague general im- 
pression, for that is all I can give 



you. That world of the thirtieth cen- 
tury will be a world of wholesale 
anarchy, a world of battle, murder 
and sudden death. You could not im- 
agine a more terrible contrast to the 
glories of the twenty-fifth century. 
Yet, I suppose it was to be expected. 
I have very little faith in the human 
race. Man boasts of his achieve- 
ments. He can build great cities, 
master great problems, control great 
forces; he can create great music 
and great literature; he thinks that 
he is Lord of the Universe. But when 
it comes to a crisis — and the things 
I saw in the thirtieth century prove 
this conclusively — Man is no more 
than a helpless insect, the sport of 
chance, the prey of forces that he 
can never hope to control. That is 
my impression of what I saw; and 
from it I come to the inevitable con- 
clusion that Man is doomed.” 

**¥§UBBISH!” snapped a hard 
voice. The little group in the 
corner of the crowded clubroom 
looked up in surprise and Kellogg 
looked round indignantly — to meet 
the uncompromising glare of Carl 
Janning, ace of explorers, who loomed 
up like a granite monolith behind 
Farren's rolling bulk. Janning's eyes 
glistened frostily. Kellogg bristled. 
The Doom of Man had been his pet 
idea for twenty-five years. 

“And what do you mean by that 
discourtesy?” he demanded. 

“Just what I say,” replied Janning 
brusquely. “You bellyaching book- 
worms give me a pain. I've read some 
of the trash you turn out — Man is a 
failure, Man is doomed, Man will 
perish and all the rest of it. But 
we’ll go on in spite of it. Man, let 
me tell you, is cock of the walk, and 
there are no forces in this world or 
any other that we cannot control if 
we put our backs into it.” 




> MECANICA 9 



"That’s a matter of opinion. But I 
have seen and I know you are wrong. 
No men could survive in the world 
that I saw.” * 

"Men like you couldn’t!” Janning’s 
tone was contemptuous. "But I mean 
men . Give me an expedition of my 
own picking, lead us to this world of 
yours and we’d guarantee to make 
hash of it.” 

"No doubt you would. I maintain 
that in the thirtieth century your 
fine expedition would not survive 
twenty-four hours, but since that 
cannot be proved I will keep that 
opinion to myself.” 

"You know damned well it can be 
proved. Why don’t you come straight 
out with it, Kellogg? You’ve been 
fishing for someone to back you for 
a second time flight all the evening, 
haven’t you?” 

"Well, er — I,” Kellogg fumbled 
awkwardly, flustered by the other’s 
embarrassing directness. Janning 
dissembled with a mirthless grin. 

"Sure, you want backing. Don’t 
blame you for wanting it, but why 
the hell don’t you say so? No need 
to pitch an elaborate yarn to get us 
all interested. I’ll go before the 
Board of Directors myself, if you 
like, and get five other backers to go 
with me to arrange an expedition 
on the same terms as before — flight 
to the future in the Kellogg time- 
chamber and forty-eight hours of re- 
search when we get there. Suit 
you ?” 

"Very good of you to offer it,” said 
Kellogg, slightly mollified, "and now 
that you force me I’ll admit I was 
sounding the company for such sup- 
port, so I’ll take your offer. But take 
it from me — there will be no forty- 
eight hours of research. I meant 
what I said about that world of the 
thirtieth century and whatever you 
think of my opinions I stand by the 



facts. If we are foolish enough to 
quit the time-stream for actuality we 
shall be lucky if we survive those 
forty-eight hours.” 

"I’ll take a bet on that,” said Jan- 
ning largely. 

"Hm. I’m not a rich man but I 
have my means — about as much as 
you have. I’ll stake two-thirds of 
them on the outcome of this expedi- 
tion. If you win you’re welcome to 
them, if not — well, I won’t live to col- 
lect.” 

"So you lose either way — your 
money or your life. You’ve got more 
stuffing in you than I thought.” Jan- 
ning’s tribute, if not lavish, was un- 
grudging. Kellogg smiled, a little 
wearily. 

“I’m an elderly man and I’ve real- 
ized my life’s ambition. I shall die, 
if I have to, without regrets. But it 
is a pity to see a promising young 
fellow like you throw his life away 
with all that promise unfulfilled.” 

"Damn that!” Janning hated ex- 
pressions of sentiment; they hit at 
that streak of tenderness that was 
buried deep in his hard nature. "I’ll 
collect six volunteers from this group 
here, a crew of technicians for the 
time-chamber, outfit the lot and we’ll 
be ready to start within a month.” 

"Excellent. But — ” and there was 
no ignoring the sober seriousness in 
Kellogg’s tone, "I warn you solemnly 
that you are taking your lives in 
your hands.” 

Janning grunted. 

"They’ll never be in safer hands.” 
CHAPTER II 

K ELLOGG’S time-chamber 
was a colossal affair, a 
great travelling college, 
laboratory, living space and expe- 
ditionary headquarters combined. 



10 



COSMIC STORIES 



Travelling? Yes, it travelled, not 
on land or sea or in the air but 
down the great, mysterious river of 
Time, which of all men until the 
twenty-first century only Kellogg had 
learned to navigate. 

It was also a travelling hangar, for 
there was space enough to bring 
along Janning's big airplane. This 
was a twin-engined Army bomber, 
without bomb-racks or gun-emplace- 
ments but with a transparent nose 
for the bomber-observer. The ex- 
plorer had told the fearful Kellogg 
in no uncertain terms that he meant 
to explore, and the monoplane was 
for that very purpose. He had gath- 
ered together a formidable group of 
men for the expedition: Farren, con- 
queror of the Arctic; Pascoe, from 
the first time expedition, who knew 
the jungles of the world as other men 
knew their own back streets; Cap- 
tain Overlin, crack pilot of the 
world's air lines; Colonel Gundry, 
military expert of the Scientific Ex- 
ploration Society. Masters of mighty 
forces, men who could conquer any 
exotic, futurian world if any men 
could. But so far the world of which 
Kellogg stood in such awe had 
proved, from aerial observation, to be 
a very mild and uninteresting place. 

“There's a hell of a lot of life in 
this dump," groused Janning, indicat- 
ing the dreary plain below with an 
impatient gesture. “Are you sure it’s 
the right time, Kellogg? Or were 
you having nightmares last time you 
were here?" 

“The last time was the same time," 
Kellogg smiled. “But the place is a 
little different — about two hundred 
miles away." 

“Then we should be nearly there," 
put in Farren, joining them where 
they stood near the pilot’s cabin. 
“We've been out forty minutes and 



this is a pretty fast machine. Know 
any landmarks, Kellogg?" 

“I remember a chain of mountains 
as big as the Rockies and a broad, 
sluggish river. But aside from na- 
ture, it was the manmade things I 
shall never forget — hullo, there's the 
mountain chain already." 

He was gazing ahead as he spoke, 
over the shoulder of the pilot Over- 
lin who was lifting the ship gradually 
for the climb ahead. The other men 
came up and followed his gaze, ad- 
miring the line of majestic peaks 
ahead. Except for Janning. 

“I hope to hell there'll be action 
over those hills." 

“Oh, you'll get your action, my 
friend!" Kellogg spoke edgily. “I am 
only sorry I have to be there to share 
it with you." 

The climb was steep and the range 
was broad. From the fast rush over 
the desert Overlin had to slow the 
machine down, and it was nearly half 
an hour before the peaks were 
crossed. Descending the opposite 
slope, they saw it all. 

“A city!" muttered Janning. 

“Quite a big one," said the cheer- 
ful Farren, “and at first sight it is 
rather like the New York of our 
time. Eh, Gundry?" 

Gundry, who had never seen New 
York, nodded affirmation. 

It was the same familiar vista of 
high-piled towers soaring to the 
heavens like yells of triumph; the 
same atmosphere of roaring, fright- 
ening, half-nightmare fantasy, of a 
world where things were too big to 
be true. The same city of brawling 
life and lusty materialism that civili- 
zation had seen all over the world for 
ages. It was a twin city to New 
York— possibly it was New York, 
changed through the centuries. 
Larger, perhaps, for the glisten- 
ing towers averaged two or three 




MECANICA 



11 



thousand feet in height, and it 
stretched away as far as the eye 
could see down a valley between two 
great chains of mountains, in the 
centre of which flowed the broad 
green river. 

THIS is your world of mon- 
^ sters, is is?” grunted Janning, 
disgusted. 

“It is.” The others were too ab- 
sorbed in the scene below to notice 
that Kellogg's face had lost color, 
that he clenched his flsts till the 
knuckles showed white. 

“Then it's a flop. A frost. I came 
here to get action, not easy money. 
What a hell of a place to find that !” 

Overlin had cut the throttle and 
now the monoplane cruised at about 
five hundred feet over the higher 
towers. The roar of the city below 
soared up like subterranean thunder 
— pounding of great factories, deep 
booming roar of powerhouses, the 
scream and rattle of giant locomo- 
tives and high-power auto engines, 
shriek of sirens, whistles, loudspeak- 
ers, crash and thunder of machinery 
of all kinds and sizes, sending clouds 
of black or billowing white smoke 
into the air. Sight and sound com- 
bined to create the vision of a me- 
chanical hell. 

Pascoe, who had been sprawling 
full-length in the observation post in 
the nose, came back suddenly to the 
others, excited and perplexed. 

“There's something peculiar about 
all this,” he said, frowning. “Take a 
look through these glasses, Farren, 
and see if you can make it out. I'm 
damned if I can.” 

“Neither could I,” murmured Kel- 
logg inaudibly. He closed his eyes 
and made a gigantic effort to control 
himself. When he opened them again 
he was calm — calm with resignation 
and fatalism. Farren took Pascoe's 



binoculars and surveyed the street 
below. 

Seen in closeup, the ant-like 
throngs in the canyons of the city 
were shown to comprise a horde of 
mighty traffic. There were automo- 
biles there, thousands of them, great 
torpedo-shaped things the size of lo- 
comotives and bigger, travelling like 
iron whirlwinds. There were varia- 
tions in sizes and colors but all were 
of the same design — streamlined, 
bodies enclosed, wheels hidden, no 
windows or windshields . . . 

“You're right, Pascoe. There is 
something peculiar about all this. Bub 
I can't make it out at all.” 

Voices in the cabin were silent for 
a space, as the puzzled men scanned 
the hectic scene beneath, trying to 
figure out what queer element made 
it strange — different, from the nor- 
mal scenes of humanity. 

“No men about!” ejaculated Gun- 
dry suddenly. 

For a moment the words of the 
usually uncommunicative soldier did 
not register. Then Janning exploded. 

“What's that?” 

He seized the binoculars Gundry 
passed him and joined Farren. In 
the shifting kaleidoscope below there 
were buildings, traffic, machines mov- 
ing and speeding. But Gundry was 
right. There were no men about. 
The broad sidewalks flanking the mo- 
torways were empty. The buildings 
that should have been thronged with 
incomers and outgoers showed no 
such signs of life. 

“And if there were men inside 
those cars,” muttered Farren, “they 
couldn't possibly see where they 
were going.” 

“May I be damned!” commented 
Janning. 

They were silent for a while, try- 
ing to accept and believe the phe- 
nomenon before their eyes. Trying 



12 



COSMIC STORIES 



to explain it. Here was a complex 
mechanical civilization of a familiar 
type; with no one to work it; and it 
worked. How on earth was it done? 
Why was it done? What did it mean? 
Who was responsible for it? There 
must be men somewhere — what sort 
of men? Who — what — how — 

“There goes the Homicide Squad/' 
said Gundry. 

They were speeding down the cen- 
ter of the broad motorway, ten of 
them in perfect pair formation. Mo- 
torcycles. Two-wheeled machines, all 
enclosed, without saddles, handle- 
bars — or riders. 

“Hell's teeth!’' swore Janning. In 
two words he expressed the astonish- 
ment and incredulity of the whole 
group. Here was proof positive that 
the city of the thirtieth century was 
a phenomenon without parallel. This 
was not merely a collection of auto- 
matic machines doing commonplace 
tasks in doublequick time but a whole 
civilization of machines, apparently 
working by themselves, possibly for 
themselves. There was no sign of 
the men who should be their masters. 
It was new. It was baffling; and it 
baffled the Kellogg time expedition 
to a man. 

“Cut the altitude, Overlin, and let’s 
get a closer look,” ordered Janning. 
Overlin tipped the plane over and 
sideways for a fast spiral descent, 
with a calculating eye on the soaring 
towers at hand. 

HAT sideslip saved their lives. 

A deafening concussion tore at 
eardrums, sent the monoplane rock- 
ing crazily sideways and down. Three 
more explosions followed in rapid 
succession and in an instant Overlin 
found himself fighting for life in a 
machine almost out of control. The 
world hurtled upward. The mono- 
plane streaked for it, nose down, 



straight for the broad expanse of a 
flat roof below. Overlin heard shouts 
of alarm back of him, the crash 
of big men thrown about like nine- 
pins and the shattering ot glass. Be- 
fore a last despairing heave on the 
stick he caught a brief glimpse of the 
grim black muzzle of a four-inch 
anti-aircraft gun pointing upwards. 
Then bullets tore through the walls, 
smashed instruments on the dash- 
board — 

Janning saw Overlin jerk con- 
vulsively and fall helplessly sideways. 
He moved too fast to think ; one blow 
flung the pilot out of his seat and 
Janning was in his place, iron hand 
clamped over the stick. The mono- 
plane hauled gradually out of its 
fearsome dive. Janning saw the huge 
expanse of roof before him and set- 
tled for a landing. Bullets still 
smashed and tore through the walls 
of the plane. 

The cabin echoed to the shattering 
of metal and glass and cries of in- 
jured men. Providentially a concrete 
blockhouse loomed up ahead at the 
side of the roof and Janning rud- 
dered the plane in its direction to get 
shelter from the murderous gunfire. 
As the uproar of it died down he 
braked and cut the motors. 

The cabin was like a slaughter- 
house. The faces of Pascoe and Far- 
ren had been slashed by flying glass 
and fairly poured blood. Gundry 
nursed and cursed a bullet-riddled 
arm and shoulder, in which bones 
had been saved only by a miracle. 
Kellogg lay unconscious, blood oozing 
from his left arm, leg and temple. 
Overlin was dead. 

“The swine!” roared Farren 
through blood-dripping lips. “Shoot- 
ing without provocation! Shooting 
at falling, helpless men! My God, 
we'll make 'em pay — ” 

“Come and sew yourself up,” said 




MECANICA 



13 



Janning abruptly, striding down the 
glass-littered cabin to the small com- 
partment at the rear. He unlocked 
the door and tugged out a chest with 
a red cross on it. Needing no advice, 
Pascoe and Farren set to work re- 
pairing injuries, luckily no more than 
flesh wounds. Gundry and Pascoe 
between them tended the unconscious 
Kellogg. They were too busy to no- 
tice Janning, the only man uninjured, 
and it was not until Kellogg was 
brought around and his injuries 
bandaged that they realized he had 
left the machine. He was back an 
instant later, and he called to Col. 
Gundry. 

“There's a piece of artillery on the 
corner of this roof, soldier, and three 
machineguns mounted along the 
parapet. We're hidden by the block- 
house and beyond their angle of fire, 
so I'm getting revenge while the get- 
ting's good." He led the soldier to 
the rear of the plane, showed him a 
row of crates bolted to the floor. “I 
came prepared for trouble. Auto- 
matics, high-power rifles and ammu- 
nition aplenty for every man. And if 
that's not enough — " 

He took a crowbar and prised open 
a crate at the end, to reveal a neat 
honeycomb arrangement inside hold- 
ing numbers of small steel eggs. 

“Mills bombs, begad!" ejaculated 
the soldier. 

“Yes, beauties. Take a couple and 
fill this bandolier with 'em, then come 
along with me." 

I T WAS windy out here on the 
roof and the two men hugged the 
wall of the blockhouse closely. Jan- 
ning dragged with him a small empty 
crate as well as the formidable object 
in his other hand. At the corner he 
stopped and turned to Gundry, still 
pressing himself to the wall. 

“Take a look round the corner," 



he hissed, “and for God's sake be 
careful." 

The soldier, wise in the warfare of 
jungle and desert as well as that of 
more civilized places, went down on 
his belly and hauled himself easily to 
the corner. There were the three 
machineguns, mounted on the para- 
pet as Janning had said. Some way 
distant stood the four-incher, ready 
to belch hate again at aerial tres- 
passers. The muzzles of the machine- 
guns nosed in the direction of the 
two men, moving in slow arcs, un- 
cannily like hunting dogs nosing out 
a scent. There were no human crews 
to operate them. 

“Looking for us," said Gundry. 

“I know. You've a bomb in each 
hand, haven't you? I'll divert their 
fire, then you take the two nearer 
ones and I'll take the other. Then 
we'll go after the big fellow." 

Gundry was on his feet again. 
With a swift movement Janning 
heaved the crate skyhigh over the 
roof of the blockhouse. The gun- 
muzzles reared high, vomiting flame. 
It was a gift of a target and the two 
men went after it vengefully. Just 
in time to dodge the concussion they 
sprang back into shelter, to hear the 
sweet crash of explosions and sudden 
cessation of fire. 

Gundry seized bombs from the 
bandolier, passed two to Janning and 
helped himself. Round the corner 
they saw that two of the guns had 
vanished and the third lay over- 
turned, still spurting bullets like a 
wounded snake spitting venom. Gun- 
dry gave it another bomb, feeling 
oddly that he was putting it out of 
its agony, and then with vindictive 
determination they went after the 
big gun. 

The bombardment smashed it to 
pieces. Janning snarled with joy as 
the gun went up, shook his fists in 




14 



COSMIC STORIES 



exultation. But not for long. Fire 
converged from the roofs of build- 
ings nearby on to the scene of the 
explosions and the two men dived 
for shelter again. 

“This is a hell of a place to be 
marooned in,” Janning snarled. His 
teeth were bared in a mirthless grin 
and his eyes glittered. Gundry looked 
at the man, recollected the rumor 
that Janning had once killed a tiger 
with nothing more than his hunting 
knife, and believed it. Janning did 
not merely lust for battle; he lived 
for it, and he'd found it. 

“Tight spot," admitted the soldier. 
Guns, large and small, could be heard 
nearby and in the distance, staccato 
accompaniment to the roar of the 
great city. Abruptly voices were 
heard, huge voices, gigantically mag- 
nified through a thousand loud- 
speakers. 

“We are at war!” thundered the 
voices, “War, war, war, war — ” 

“Action, thank God!" hissed Jan- 
ning. He ground his teeth, clenched 
a sinewy fist and smashed it against 
the other palm. Gundry shrugged. 

“Just another job of work. Hullo! 
Look over there!" 

He pointed over the broad expanse 
of the roof, out to the surrounding 
maze of towers to where a tower 
reared beside another great expanse. 
From open doors in the tower poured 
a long black stream of aircraft, big 
monoplanes, fast and formidable. 
Other doors clanged open, more ma- 
chines joined the great swarm that 
swung out in a curving line over the 
river. Janning stared hard. 

“Hell!" he said at last. “Let’s eat." 

CHAPTER III 

I T WAS, in effect, a council of 
war. Kellogg sat on an empty 
bombcrate, leaning against the 
wall of the blockhouse, pale but 



determined. Gundry sat under the 
monoplane's wing, fingering his trim 
gray mustache and looking serenely 
untroubled. Pascoe's face w r as a criss- 
cross of sticking-plaster, Farren's 
was almost hidden behind a single 
bandage. Each man was in sole com- 
mand of his own department of the 
expedition, but Janning, as sponsor, 
was nominally in command of all, 
and in the emergency he took the 
center of things without effort. 

“If we get away from here it will 
be on foot," he declared, “the plane 
is shot to pieces and the fuel tank 
is a sieve. In any case we could never 
take off without being shot at from 
every angle." 

He gestured widely to indicate the 
windy expanse of the roof where the 
expedition sat marooned. It was as 
broad as the deck of an aircraft- 
carrier and just as exposed. It would 
be impossible to take off from it 
without being detected and undoubt- 
edly shot at. 

“Pascoe says we have provisions 
enough to last for a week, with care, 
and enough armament to chuck our 
weight about if we have to. I pro- 
pose we make our way back to the 
time-chamber — we'll have all our 
work cut out to do that alone. Ques- 
tion is, what are we up against? 
Anv ideas?" 

There was silence, and men looked 
from one to another, troubled, ques- 
tioning. The problem that a few 
hours of whirlwind action had blot- 
ted out of their conscious minds 
surged up again. What was the na- 
ture of the alien world they had 
found? Who were its rulers — why 
had they attacked — Farren spoke up. 

“It seems to me that this is a sort 
of mechanical utopia such as our 
scientific romancers wrote about a 
thousand years ago. We see hordes 
of unmanned machines in operation, 




MECANICA 



15 



obviously done by remote control. 
The men of this age have lifted the 
curse of toil entirely from their 
backs and are now devoted to science 
and art. That is why we see nothing 
of them.” 

“We shall find,” he concluded, 
“that the majority of them are bur- 
ied away in their laboratories and 
colleges, while a few technicians su- 
pervise the machines. I propose that 
we hunt out the authorities, or coun- 
cil, or whoever is in office and tell 
them who we are and what we want. 
We have all our dipomatic credentials 
with us.” 

“They wouldn't recognize them if 
they saw them,” declared Janning. 
“We are in a world a thousand years 
removed from our own. Within an 
hour of arrival here we are attacked 
without warning, and having taken 
our just reprisals we hear they are 
at war. Where are we going to find 
the men we can't see? What are we 
going to do with them if they act 
like that? What can we expect from 
them after what we've had? No, I 
tell you, if we want to get out of 
here alive we shall have to fight our 
way — every inch of it.” 

“Big proposition,” murmured Gun- 
dry, who knew war and warfare. 

“But surely there was some mis- 
take,” objected Farren. “I'm sure 
that if we appealed to the right 
people — ” 

“No good, Farren,” it was Kellogg 
who interrupted. “Before we started 
I warned you all of the odds you 
were challenging. This is your world 
of monstrosities, Janning. Explain it 
if you can. Take it. I wish you joy 
of it.” 

“Thanks,” Janning glared. “We've 
smashed four of your monstrosities 
already, and we'll smash the whole 
damned place if we have to. Pascoe, 
which way to the time-chamber?” 



“We approached the city from the 
west. When we were shot down we 
were close to the river, probably we 
are near the riverfront now. Our 
obvious plan is to get down to street 
level and make our way to the moun- 
tains by road, always assuming we 
are not stopped by the police on our 
way.” 

“We won't be stopped by police 
here,” murmured Kellogg, “this is a 
world of anarchy, my friends, an- 
archy and sudden death.” 

“Shut up, you pessimist,” said 
Farren goodnatu redly. “I dare say 
this is quite a rational world when 
once you get the hang of it.” 
“No,” Kellogg sighed fatalistically, 
“there is something that makes me 
believe that the true facts of this 
world are altogether wilder and more 
horrible than any rational explana- 
tion. Cars without drivers; motor- 
cycles without riders; guns shooting 
at you of their own accord — ” 

His voice died away and his eyes 
closed. In the brief silence that fol- 
lowed a cold, faint chill crept over 
the other men, chill of another, alien 
and monstrous world. 

“Hell!” roared Janning, voice ex- 
ploding like a gunshot, “this is a 
time and place for action, not maud- 
lin speculation. We've a tramp of two 
hundred miles in front of us and God 
knows how many fights for life. We'll 
never survive a day if we sit here 
drivelling like this.” 

“I gave you two days to survive.” 
Kellogg was smiling again. “It seems 
I was generous. It's no good, Jan- 
ning. We are doomed — mere helpless 
insects amid monsters of iron and 
steel.” 

“Helpless!” Janning's teeth bared. 
“Come on, Gundry, we've got to 
make an army out of these cripples.” 
Between them they hauled out the 
crates and cases of armament. There 



16 



COSMIC STORIES 



was a powerful Service rifle and two 
revolvers for each man, and ban- 
doliers to carry ammunition and 
bombs. 

“Provisions here for a clear week,” 
said Pascoe, stowing tins into their 
packs. “We prepared for a stay of 
forty-eight hours and a big margin 
of safety. This ought to see us 
through.” 

“If not we'll take to cannibalism,” 
was Janning' s rejoinder. 

The odd little army was ready and 
equipped. The assortment of ban- 
dages and civilian clothes, save for 
the uniformed Gundry, made queer 
contrast with the formidable array 
of weapons. But the weapons were 
in good hands. Janning, Gundry, 
Pascoe and Farren were hard-living, 
hard-bitten men accustomed to dan- 
ger and threatened death, and even 
the sedentary Kellogg had had serv- 
ice experience in his younger day 
and could carry a gun smartly. 

“One more thing,” said Farren, as 
the expedition gathered round the 
cabin door of the monoplane. “What 
about Overlin?” 

“I laid out his body and covered 
it,” said Pascoe. “We'll have to leave 
him here in the plane. We might 
fire it and cremate him, in lieu of 
a decent burial.” 

“That would bring half the local 
air force down on us,” Janning said. 
“We’ve done him what honors we 
can — come on.” 

A CAUTIOUS examination be- 
forehand had shown that the 
only exit was through a green- 
painted door at the further end of 
the blockhouse, which opened into a 
cage-like room that was clearly an 
elevator. When the door closed of its 
own accord behind them there was 
no sense of motion to follow, and for 



five silent, restless minutes they 
wondered if it were not a kind of 
trap. But then a door opened sud- 
denly and a deafening uproar over- 
whelmed them. The rhythmic thun- 
der of big machines was punctuated 
by the rattle and clatter of smaller 
and the pounding of wheeled trans- 
port. The din rasped uncomfortably 
upon the men's ears and they gritted 
their teeth. Gathered round outside 
the door of the elevator they sur- 
veyed the scene, hands hovering over 
gunbutts. 

The place was huge and in clear 
daylight, though there were no win- 
dows in the wall nor sign of illumina- 
tion. Long clear avenues stretched 
between row upon row of roaring 
machines ; wheels spinning, levers 
clicking, long driving-bands clatter- 
ing, hundreds of little triphammers 
rising and falling, metal slugs pop- 
ping in and out, cogwheels turning, 
actuating crankshafts and worm- 
gears. Machinery everywhere. Rank 
upon rank of roaring, thundering, 
clattering machines. 

“No men in here either,” Gundry 
raised his powerful voice. 

Not an operator nor a supervisor. 

They strode down a broad white 
avenue, Janning in front and the 
other four spaced in pairs behind 
each other, a wedge-shaped forma- 
tion detailed by Gundry giving each 
man clear vision about him and space 
to handle his weapons in comfort. 
They gazed almost in awe at this 
mechanical wonderland. A heavy 
rumbling was heard overhead and a 
travelling crane passed above, bear- 
ing a mass of steel. They passed a 
crossing where rails were sunk into 
the floor and a train of electric wag- 
ons clattered past them. At the end 
of this avenue, to the left of them, 
was an open door leading to the 



MECANICA 



17 



open air, and at Janning's indication 
they made for it. 

The factory was built, not on one 
of the great motorways but in a com- 
paratively narrow side street. The 
walls of surrounding factories reared 
up to heights of more than five hun- 
dred feet, solid and windowless. Ma- 
chinery echoed and thundered from 
within, but the street was empty of 
traffic. With formation spread out a 
little the expedition advanced down 
it in the direction indicated by Pas- 
coe, the acknowledged guide. At the 
end of the road a few hundred yards 
away traffic was visible, and beyond 
that the gleam of the river. 

“Get to the river,” 7 instructed Pas- 
coe, “then we can locate a main road 
leading west. Maybe we can get a 
lift from some driver, if they do 
those things here.” 

“Some hopes!” grunted Janning. 

Halfway down the street the road- 
way was under repair. The fiendish 
roar of pneumatic drills mingled gaily 
with the general uproar. Drills bit 
into the paving, cement mixers re- 
volved, road-laying machines ad- 
vanced. All by themselves. No labor- 
ers to handle them, no foreman to 
supervise. 

“This beats me,” muttered Farren, 
“can you make head or tail of it, 
soldier?” 

Gundry was an Army officer of the 
traditional school whose mental proc- 
esses ran mainly to the giving and 
taking of orders. His shrewd com- 
monsense could explain little of the 
bizarre situation confronting them. 

“I believe,” said Kellogg, “that we 
have found a race of intelligent ma- 
chines. Not humanly intelligent, per- 
haps, but sufficiently so to perform 
their allotted tasks without super- 
vision. A blind intelligence, but 
dangerous for all that. That is what 
I thought when I first saw them and 



that is what I feared about them— 
their intelligence!” 

“Bosh!” snarled Janning. 

TPHEY REACHED the end of the 
street without interruption or 
interception. The sidewalk along the 
embankment was railed off from the 
roadway by a high steel fence, block- 
ing a full view of the motorway. A 
ramp led up to what was apparently 
a pedestrian bridge over the motor- 
way, and ascending this the expedi- 
tion had its first view of the embank- 
ment and the river. 

The giant motors thundered be- 
neath them in a never-ending stream 
at speeds which the twenty-first cen- 
tury would have called dangerous. 
Down the river proceeded big white 
streamlined ships of great tonnage, 
travelling like speedboats. But per- 
haps the strangest phenomena were 
beside the embankment. Ships in 
dock lay with hatch-covers thrown 
open. Over them stretched the arms 
of great cranes, rising and falling, 
stretching like human limbs, hauling 
great cargoes from ship to shore. 
But there were no crews aboard ship, 
no stevedores to manhandle cargoes 
or stow them on the driverless trucks 
that carried them away. No men of 
any sort, anywhere. 

“I believe you're right, Kellogg,” 
Farren's voice shook a little. “There 
is a weird sort of intelligence about 
all these machines. What they re- 
mind me of I can't quite think, but 
it's something inhuman.” 

Janning cursed. Pascoe shouted 
for attention. 

“This road joins a curve of the 
motorway and bridges across the 
river. Let's get down to street level 
again and skirt the embankment till 
we find a westward road.” 

The sidewalk along the motorway 
was broad, and though there was 



18 



COSMIC STORIES 



space for thousands of pedestrians 
there were none save the five ex- 
peditionaries. 

This sensation of tramping* the 
familiar noisy streets of a big mod* 
ern metropolis as if they were paths 
through the depths of the jungle was 
indescribably weird. The absence of 
men amid these triumphantly mate- 
rial works was now more or less ac- 
cepted, but the abnormality of the 
situation was preying on the minds 
of more sensitive men like Kellogg, 
Farren and Pascoe. 

“I wonder what goes on inside 
these things/' muttered Farren, in- 
dicating the cliff of masonry on their 
left, rearing hundreds of feet into 
the air. Gundry shrugged. Kellogg 
thought what a magnificent sight 
these towers must present from the 
river, but then he thought of that 
uncanny intelligence within, and 
shuddered. Of a sudden the expedi- 
tion was stopped in its tracks by a 
voice, echoing over the surrounding 
uproar. 

“Calling all cars! Calling all units 
of the Mobile Squad in Area QX. The 
incredible report that the aircraft 
shot down this morning was manned 
by intelligent beasts is now con- 
firmed. The beasts were observed by 
cameras to enter Factory QX4 and 
are now believed to be at large. They 
are armed, intelligent and dangerous. 
All squads patrolling Block Ten will 
throw a cordon and converge. The 
beasts must be shot on sight." 

For a moment the expedition was 
nonplussed. 

“That was a human voice!" cried 
Farren at last. 

“No," Kellogg shook his head. “An 
inhuman voice. Cold, hollow and me- 
chanical." 

“Come on, damn you!" roared Jan- 
ning. Don't you see, you fools ? In- 



telligent beasts. Shoot on sight. 
They're after us!" 

Even as they realized it they heard 
the fierce howl of sirens, the sputter- 
ing roar of high-power engines as a 
Mobile Squad of the riderless cycles 
came streaking down the road at 
high speed. 

CHAPTER IV 

T HERE was just an instant of 
time for rapid thinking and 
Janning made the most of it. 
He yelled to Gundry, who had also 
spotted the open door in the tower 
on the corner, and while Gundry 
herded the other three men within, 
Janning sprang to the side of the 
door to cover the retreat. 

The Mobile Squad was charging 
down a secondary road leading into 
the motorway. Janning saw them 
coming, saw the revolvers gripped in 
steel claws at their sides, and his 
teeth bared in a soundless snarl. His 
own two guns roared their challenge, 
ripping up the tires of the foremost 
machines, sending them skidding. 
Bullets ricochetted from steel sides. 
But the second row of cycles carried 
sub-machineguns mounted in front. 
Janning dived for shelter as the guns 
roared and gouts of concrete spouted 
from the walls about him. No time 
to stop and stand, though this nar- 
row passage might be held against 
an army. He heaved at the door, 
slammed it shut. Gundry seized his 
arm. 

“All right, Janning?" 

“0. K., thanks, soldier. Let’s get 
out of here, somehow." 

The place was another factory, 
roaring. Long shafts of steel were 
borne from place to place by massive 
travelling cranes. A big wagon rum- 
bled down the central aisle, bearing 
a mass of shining steel cylinders. 




20 



COSMIC STORIES 



They set out down the road at a 
steady jogtrot. There was no pedes- 
trian fence along this stretch and 
here the men had their first close 
view of the motorway. It was vast — 
broad as a ten-track railroad and the 
streaking autos loomed up gigantic. 
A ten-ton truck of twentieth century 
highways would have been dwarfed 
on the road beside these thundering 
giants, flying past at speeds of a hun- 
dred miles an hour or more. They 
seemed to be built for nothing but 
size, power, high speed and taking of 
heavy strains, for even in rounding 
the huge, elaborate clover leaf cross- 
ing further down the embankment 
they did not slow down but hurtled 
round the banking like mad things. 

About a quarter of a mile down 
the road from Block QX the sidewalk 
curved in and formed a secondary 
track to the roadway. In the center 
of this track a canopy extended out- 
ward over a big, garishly painted 
service station. Cars were parked 
further along the block. The five 
men stopped as a huge auto pulled 
into the secondary track wiil^r 
screech of brakes, came noisily to a 
stop beside a row of bright green oil- 
pumps. A long overhead arm swung 
out, extended a nozzled pipe into the 
tanks under the side of the car. 
Needles rounded the dial on the 
pump. A noisy little tender put- 
tered out of the station and circled 
the big car, spraying its dusty sides 
lavishly. The expeditionaries, their 
recent peril forgotten, gazed on en- 
thralled. 

“Automatic service — for driver- 
less cars,” cried Farren, and again 
his mind sought that weird parallel 
that it could not quite grasp. 

“Horrible!” Kellogg shuddered, 
“and those ghastly things in the fac- 
tory — ” He swayed a little and Far- 
ren caught his arm. The man was 



overwrought and on the point of col- 
lapse. But Janning shook him 
roughly. 

“Don’t faint yet,” he grated, 
“We’re getting into this car first, 
then you can collapse all you like.” 

Panel doors banged open in the 
side of the car and the tender buzzed 
in. Without hesitation Janning and 
Gundry went in after it, followed 
rather reluctantly by the other three. 
Inside, the huge automobile was as 
commodious as a whole Pullman 
coach, though it had none of a Pull- 
man’s comfort. Motors and machin- 
ery lay everywhere and the place 
reeked of oil. The walls which looked 
like steel from outside were now 
seen to be transparent throughout 
and the car was like a travelling 
glasshouse. The little tender fussed 
around over machinery, extending 
cranked arms holding cans of lubri- 
cant to oil joints and spanners to ad- 
just nuts and bolts, doing half a doz- 
en jobs at once. Janning watched 
the thing alertly, guns drawn, ready 
to shoot it to pieces the moment it 
showed signs of fight. But it didn’t. 
In a few minutes it buzzed out, the 
doors clanged shut, the roar of the 
motors rose to a bellow and the car 
moved off smoothly and rapidly. 

“We’re saved!” shouted Farren. 
With the sudden snapping of ten- 
sion his whole stout frame went weak 
and he leaned against an oil-tank, 
laughing shakily. Pascoe too was af- 
fected and he sank limply to the 
floor, gasping. Kellogg, surprisingly, 
was calm again. But he understood 
the feelings of the others. It was 
not the danger that had caused the 
reaction, though that was bad 
enough. It was the brooding, haunt- 
ing terror of the unknown that lay 
everywhere about them and the 
threats of death in unknowable, in- 
explicable forms lurking in a fa- 



MECANICA 



19 



“Munitions, by God!” swore Jan- 
ning. 

“Shell cases. No danger if we 
shoot." 

It was a good place to play cat and 
mouse in, especially since the mice 
had fighting power and fighting 
spirit. In the rush of emergency 
Kellogg’s morbid fancies were forgot- 
ten. Time for action. A crash on 
the door warned them to move fast. 

“We’re trapped,” said Janning 
with finality. “They’ve closed a 
cordon round this block and they’re 
smashing that door in. If we’re go- 
ing to get out we must make our own 
openings.” 

“Take the offensive,” Gundry said, 
as the door shook under another 
smashing blow. “Get ’em into the 
open here and attack en masse. Like 
this.” 

Swiftly he outlined a scheme while 
the others listened in breathless 
haste not unmingled with fear. They 
had barely time to scatter and take 
cover in the positions assigned them 
when the door crashed open and the 
weird machines of the Mobile Squad, 
black, glistening things like an army 
of giant ants, poured into the factory 
in a roaring, reeking torrent. The 
five men crouched amid the mael- 
strom of bellowing machinery, hearts 
pounding, some with fear, some 
merely out of breath, one with lust 
for battle. Avenues were thronged 
with motorcycles, cruising slowly, 
sub-machineguns nosing for a target. 
Near the door they w r ere thick, but at 
the far end where they had not pen- 
etrated, the place was empty. Jan- 
ning moved, placed a pillar between 
himself and the nearest advancing 
machine and lobbed a bomb in a high 
arc toward the far end. It burst 
with shattering concussion amid a 
tangle of wires and wheels that went 
flying sky high. The air quaked to 



the roar of accelerating engines as 
angry machines raced for the scene 
of the explosion. Right into Gundry’s 
trap. 

Two more bombs from Janning hit 
the milling crowd and as more ma- 
chines tore up the other men joined 
the bombardment. Motorcycles 
reared up savagely on one wheel, 
shrieking like wild beasts wounded. 
Guns crashed and echoed, wheels and 
cylinders flew out and flames spouted 
from burst oil-tanks. More and more 
of the senseless things came charg- 
ing down the avenues to join the 
melee, whirling, roaring, snarling like 
bloodcrazed animals fighting to the 
death. The hidden men methodically 
fed explosive fuel into the hideous 
bonfire, till Janning caught Gundry’s 
signal. 

“Coast’s clear,” boomed the sol- 
dier’s tremendous voice, “Time for 
retreat, Janning.” 

The whole of the converging 
squadrons had been drawn to the 
battle at the far end of the factory, 
leaving the door open and unguarded. 

L EAVING the appalling scene be- 
hind them the expedition raced 
for the open door, horrible noise of 
battle still ringing in their ears above 
the pounding of the factory. The 
side street from which the Mobile 
Squad had issued was empty, save 
for the complicated bulk of a ma- 
chine that was possibly a piledriver. 
Evidently this was the thing that 
had battered down the door. It 
crouched on the sidewalk, throbbing 
with power in reserve. Janning and 
Gundry reached for grenades, but 
the thing made no move towards 
them. 

“We’d better get going,” shouted 
Pascoe. “Down the motorway and 
away from this block before we’re 
killed. The faster the better.” 



MECANICA 



21 



miliar, almost commonplace, setting. 

Janning, after a glare of disgust 
at the others, paced to and fro like 
a caged lion, muttering to himself. 
Gundry alone retained complete calm, 
the wide-eyed and innocent calm of 
one who did not seriously understand 
what fear was. Methodically he 
stacked the other men's rifles, 
stowed bandoliers of bombs on the 
rack overhead. 

J ANNING strode to the front of 
the car and glared ahead. The 
machine had now hit the central 
track and was streaking at high 
speed. The horizon fairly leaped 
towards it. Despite its speed or 
more than one hundred miles an 
hour, iron monsters overtook and 
passed it continually, while those on 
the opposite tracks flashed past like 
light. The great skyscraping tow- 
ers flew by, like the prows of giant 
galleys on a sea of concrete and steel. 
The journey was wild, exhilarating; 
amid this avalanche of machines Jan- 
ning felt the surge of joyous fury 
within him, felt the pounding of his 
blood, the lust of battle he had felt 
before when hacking his inexorable 
way through many an impenetrable 
jungle. Man had conquered the jun- 
gle, Man had built this colossal city, 
Man controlled these titanic ma- 
chines — God, the glory of being a 
Man! A fighting man in a fighting 
world! His teeth ground, fists clawed 
out and clenched as if over an in- 
visible throat. Forgotten were the 
morbid croakings of Kellogg, the 
weird incomprehensibility of this 
alien world where death lurked 
round every corner and struck with 
blind unreason. This was battle, and 
battle was life. 

“Where are we heading for, Pas- 
coe?" came Farren's voice suddenly. 
He was calm again, calm as he al- 



ways was when facing the normal 
dangers of the Arctic. 

“This road runs due north. If the 
car keeps straight ahead it means we 
shall have to make a long detour to 
the southwest when we leave it, un- 
less w r e can board another and get 
a lift as far as the mountains, or even 
beyond." 

It seemed that the city w 7 ould 
never end. Fast as the car travelled, 
the same scene presented itself con- 
tinually. 

Nothing but rearing towers flank- 
ing the long, broad river, filling the 
valley between the rolling mountain 
chains. Nowhere was there a break 
in the scene. This congested valley 
might extend to the ends of the 
earth. Janning glared fixedly ahead, 
wondering faintly if the whirlwind 
ride might take them anywhere near 
the time-chamber in the end, but 
more concerned with the immediate 
possibility of another fight. Abrupt- 
ly the car hurled itself up the ramp 
of a crossing, rounded the banking at 
a fierce angle with screech of brakes 
and howl of supercharger. The men 
grabbed stanchions, shouting, as cen- 
trifugal force flung them violently off 
balance. Down another ramp and on 
the straight again the car headed 
west. 

Farren came to join Janning in 
the front. The vista before them 
was magnificent. The western road 
was even broader than the embank- 
ment and led in one straight tower- 
flanked sweep to the blue mountains 
in the distance. 

“Superb !" murmured Farren. 
“And now 7 , thank God, we're going 
westward and towards the time- 
chamber." 

“You're in a hell of a hurry to get 
away from here," Janning growled, 
“What's the matter? Afraid of those 
damned things?" 




22 



COSMIC STORIES 



“I am," Farren, who had killed 
polar bears in his time, gazed at the 
other man steadily. “You know I am 
not a man to take fright easily, but I 
tell you, this world we have come 
into has something of the unholy 
about it. It's wild. It's mad. Look 
at it now — ” he gestured, pointing 
down the great road ahead, to the 
great cars whirling on either side, 
“what's the purpose of all this? 
Where's the sense of it, all these mad 
machines running about like — well, 
like—" 

“Overgrown insects?" 

“Insects! That's it!" That was 
the parallel that Farren’s subcon- 
scious mind had been seeking. This 
weird, wild world on wheels was like 
an enormous and horrible magnifica- 
tion of the world of insects under- 
foot. The same armor-plated bodies, 
grim and glistening black, or bright 
with a polished, satiny luster. The 
same scurrying movement hither and 
thither, the same blind, purposeless 
efficiency and untiring labor. The 
same ruthless disregard for life, the 
utter absence of anything that men 
call beautiful. A wonderful world. 
But a world gone stark, staring, rav- 
ing mad. 

“You're right, Farren. This is a 
hell of a place, but that's just why 
I am enjoying it. You don't have 
to go into a funk like Kellogg. We 
are men, damn it, with men's brains 
and men's cunning, and men's 
strength, too. These mad things can 
chase us and harry us because they 
outnumber us, but they can never 
beat us. Brace up, man! We’ll have 
to fight our way — sure we will, but 
where's the joy of life without a hell 
of a good fight every now and then?" 

Farren laughed, his good humor 
restored. 

“What a man for trouble! Well, 



you've got your bellyful of it now. 
If you can take it, so can we." 

T HE CAR was nearing the moun- 
tains. It roared under the arch- 
way of another huge crossing and 
pressed relentlessly on. The other 
three men had joined Janning and 
Farren in the front and were ab- 
sorbed in the scene ahead. 

“Very smooth travelling in this 
car," remarked Pascoe, “notice there 
is no bumping or vibration?" 

“Except for the noise you might 
call it peaceful," Farren said. “I won- 
der where this thing will put us down 
if it ever does — Ye gods, look at 
that!" He had suddenly gone rigid. 
They followed his trembling finger to 
see the new element that had abrupt- 
ly entered the now-familiar scene of 
the machine-world. 

Over the western mountains the 
sky was black with bombers. There 
was no doubting the identity or the 
purpose of the terrifying clouds that 
reared up like a sudden whirlwind 
over the city. As quick as the eye 
could follow they rolled over the 
western outskirts and helldived to 
earth, and the city rocked to the con- 
cussion of ton after ton of high ex- 
plosive. 

There was never an air raid like it. 
Towers keeled over and toppled in 
ruin, cars, motors, engines, machines 
of every shape and size and descrip- 
tion flew high in fragments. Qeath 
and destruction rained torrents and 
the car bearing the only living be- 
ings in the whole city hurtled 
straight for the inferno. Kellogg 
screamed as a hawklike monoplane 
swooped down on the car, gunfire 
blazing from its wings. Janning 
seized him, flung him behind the 
shelter of a dynamo. The walls split 
under the impact of explosive bul- 
lets, men yelled and dived for cover. 



MECANICA 



28 



Before the car swerved round a 
bend with screaming brakes to seek 
shelter, Janning in the front caught 
a quick glimpse of the fierce, in- 
domitable machines of the Mobile 
Squads pouring a fire of destruction 
into the flaming skies. 

CHAPTER V 

T HE CAR plunged up a north- 
ward road, slowed, turned 
into a secondary track and 
down a ramp leading underground. 
Motors boomed hollowly in the walls 
of the tunnel. It came out finally into 
a great underground park and rolled 
to a stop. Around it other cars poured 
in by the hundred. The uncanny in- 
telligence of the machine-world told 
these senseless things that danger 
threatened, and some intelligence of 
their own, perhaps, guided them to 
safety. 

When it seemed that everything 
was still, five human beings crept out 
of cover to survey their position. The 
car was riddled from end to end but 
only one man was hurt. Janning, 
hitherto untouched, now blistered the 
air with cursing as he tore off his 
clothing to get at a shoulder damaged 
by fragments of shell. Kellogg, with 
surprising firmness, pushed him into 
a sitting position and attended to 
bandaging the injury, a severe one 
which would certainly incapacitate 
Janning's left arm for the rest of the 
journey. The others collected their 
scattered belongings, Gundry utter- 
ing a silent prayer for the miracle 
that had saved the store of grenades 
from flying fragments. 

“How do we get out of here?” de- 
manded Janning, between curses. 

“Why not stay where we are?” ob- 
jected Farren. “We're safe enough, 
and certainly an air raid like that 



one is too big a handful even for 
you.” 

Reluctantly Janning agreed. No 
one man can fight bombers with 
rifles and revolvers, and to enter the 
streets again during a raid on the 
scale of the present one would be 
plain suicide. 

The auto park was deep under- 
ground, but even down here the 
crescendo of explosions vibrated like 
a nearby earthquake. It was not 
merely successive detonations but a 
long, continuous, echoing roar; and 
it went on as if it would never end. 
An hour passed; two hours; three; 
towards the end of the fourth the 
thunder had lessened somewhat in in- 
tensity. At the end of the fifth, ex- 
plosions were heard singly, and the 
feeble (by contrast) crash of gunfire. 

Six hours after the car had gone 
underground a last shot was heard, 
followed by sirens above the normal 
hullabaloo of the city. The five men 
gazed at each other mutely, ques- 
tioning, awestruck. 

“So that,” murmured Farren at 
last, “is what they meant when they 
shouted, ‘We are at war!'” 

“Whoever ‘they' may be,” Kellogg 
reminded him. 

“Whoever can they be?” Farren's 
voice was a whisper. Once again a 
cold chill of silence settled over tho 
little expedition. At first it had not 
been difficult to shake the mists of 
unholy atmosphere from their minds, 
but now, after these demonstrations 
of the machine-world's tremendous 
power and incomprehensible pur- 
poses, the haunting terror surged up 
again. The who, why, what and how 
of this appalling world came upper- 
most in their dazed minds. Danger 
of known and recognized sources was 
one thing. A world of murder gone 
mad was quite another. 

Abruptly Janning ripped out a 



24 



COSMIC STORIES 



curse that tore across morbid specu- 
lation like a slashing knife. 

“For God’s sake, lie down and sleep 
it off,” he snarled. “We’ve survived 
twelve of your forty-eight hours, 
Kellogg, and we’ll survive them all 
if your nerve doesn’t fail you.’’ 

“Look after your own nerve, Jan- 
ning. You’re getting excitable, and 
it won’t do your shoulder any good. 
Take things calmly, as I do.” 

“Pah!” Janning dragged himself 
to his feet, turned to Gundry to ar- 
range for watches to be kept, though 
there was little chance that anything 
would surprise them here in the car. 

B Y PASCOE’S timepiece the ex- 
hausted men slept a full ten 
hours, aside from two hours each of 
duty. The rumble of the city over- 
head, the noise of carpentering and 
leaving the park, went unheeded. 
Their own machine never moved. It 
was ten in the morning by the clock 
before all were awake and about. 

Pascoe unloaded tins of bacon and 
beans from his pack and a small 
heater to brew coffee. They ate 
cheerfully, the strain of yesterday’s 
terror eased out of their systems. 
They were brewing a second pot of 
coffee when a grinding clash was 
heard in the fore end of the car, and 
simultaneously the engines around 
began to throb. The car shook and 
rolled forward swiftly, heading for 
the exit tunnels. 

“We’re off!” cried Farren gaily. 
“Where to, I wonder?” 

“To the open air, at any rate.” Jan- 
ning threw back a scalding cup of 
coffee at one gulp, dropped the cup 
and reached for his rifle. There was 
a scurry of general clearance ; men 
stuffed plates and mugs into their 
packs, reached for their guns and 
bandoliers of grenades. By the time 
the car had gained the outer world 



the time expedition was ready for 
war again. 

The car turned back to the west- 
ern road it had come from. It was 
travelling slowly now, with an un- 
even coughing and jerking in its en- 
gine, and instead of making for the 
central track it kept to the secondary 
tracks for slow traffic. Some way 
ahead the men saw that the road was 
blocked with debris and impassable. 
Traffic turned to side roads. The car 
went off the road altogether at last 
and chugged into a service station 
for the renairs it needed. The men 

■a. 

stood by the door, rifles slung over 
their backs and hands at gun-butts. 
Sure enough the doors banged aside 
to admit a service tender, and at Jan- 
ning’s indication the expedition filed 
out. That glimpse of the road had 
told them that further progress 
westward must be made on foot. 

The destruction wreaked by the 
raiders was appalling. High explo- 
sives of undreamt power had poured 
a nonstop barrage into the city 
streets, striking and penetrating to 
the very foundations of the towers 
and bringing them down in tumbling 
ruin, taking others with them in 
their fall. 

Great girders and masses of con- 
crete lay scattered about in heaps of 
rubble. Cars, the giant autos of the 
super highways, had been flung about 
like toys. Here and there amid the 
debris lay overturned guns and the 
remnants of Mobile Squad cycles, 
some of them not entirely shattered 
but lying about with automatic guns 
still firing spasmodically, blindly, 
dangerously. Amongst all this wreck- 
age were many carcasses of burnt- 
out bombers, of a size that beggared 
description. The havoc stretched for 
miles in either direction. The area of 
the city devastated must have been 
colossal, the size and numbers of the 



MECANICA 



25 



bombing squadrons that wrought 
such damage beyond compute. The 
men of the twenty-first century tried 
to adjust their blurred, stupefied 
mental impressions. 

“Is it possible/' breathed Farren, 
“that machines could do this — this 
— all of their own accord? I can't 
believe it. Machines are efficient, su- 
premely efficient, and if they evolved 
intelligence they would be perfectly 
efficient. But how could they do it? 
What conceivable motive could they 
have? Even if machines could have 
a motive for anything!'' 

M ORE machines came up the 
western road, noisy, cumber- 
some things, great steamhammers 
and steamshovels. An overturned 
tower lay across the roadway, great 
walls rearing high, an enormous ob- 
stacle. The steamhammers spread 
out in line abreast formation, ad- 
vanced as one upon the obstacle and 
struck it with terrific force. It didn't 
give at first. But under the rhythmic, 
remorseless bombardment the great 
concrete wall crumbled, split away 
and finally collapsed, burying many 
of its destroyers under it. Some of 
them emerged, damaged. Some were 
wrecked. A long line of heavy trucks 
drew up behind the steamshovels, 
which advanced in their turn. They 
ate their way into the wreckage, steel 
jaws champing, heaved great mounds 
of stuff into the waiting trucks. Some 
strained at masses beyond their ca- 
pacity and broke down but went on 
working blindly, clumsily, uselessly. 

If they had intelligence it was of 
a low order, for they seemed unaware 
of anything wrong with their mech- 
anism. Big mobile derricks followed 
in their wake, extended magnetic 
steel claws into the wreckage to 
haul out big girders. The driverless 
trucks carted away masses of stuff. 



Some broke down under an overload, 
but still engines strained uselessly at 
enormous burdens. When there was 
enough space through the middle of 
the shattered tower for them to pick 
their way the men forged ahead, to- 
wards the mountains which were now 
no more than a mile or so away. 
They passed through more wreckage, 
escaping narrowly from many an odd 
gun that blazed away convulsively 
from odd points, either with intent or 
by accident. Through streets fairly 
clear big derricks hauled away the 
remnants of colossal bombers. In 
these clear spaces the work of re- 
construction was going on. Machines 
of weird shapes and all sizes built up 
a steel skeleton above a tower sliced 
off in the middle. High overhead 
great cranes hoisted girders which 
were taken by tentacular arms from 
spidery things hanging at odd places. 
Little wheeled machines ran up and 
down the fixed girders at all angles, 
clinging to surfaces like flies, rivet- 
ing, hammering, drilling, boring. 
Welding machines spouted livid 
flames. The air fairly shook to the 
uproar. Whether destroying or re- 
building itself the machine world re- 
mained the same — wild, weird, un- 
canny and inexplicable. 

The city reached its boundaries al- 
most at the foot of the mountains. 
Here the western road plunged into 
a high tunnel from which emerged a 
steady stream of trucks and mobile 
breakdown machinery, heading for 
the devastated area. There was no 
sidewalk into the tunnel and to risk 
the motorway meant almost certain 
death under pounding wheels. Ac- 
cordingly the expedition headed for 
the south side of the road over a 
pedestrian bridge and trudged from 
there along a wide strip of wasteland 
that edged the foot of the moun- 
tains/ The going was hard. Rocks, 




COSMIC STORIES 



mounds and low hills blocked the way 
on all sides. The expeditionaries 
were accustomed to hard going in 
most parts of the world, but none of 
them had had experience of moun- 
taineering. 

After a few hours of this heart- 
breaking, backbreaking effort they 
were nearing exhaustion. Kellogg, 
bearing up with silent effort, was 
white and strained. Farren's huge, 
stout frame quivered and dripped 
perspiration. Even the normally tire- 
less Janning began to give, heaving 
breath through clenched teeth and 
cursing his throbbing shoulder. The 
damned thing was weakening him 
seriously. But they ploughed on des- 
perately, tramping steadily over the 
even stretches, floundering over piles 
of rock, stopping now and then to 
blast their way through obstacles 
with grenades. Exhausting though 
the journey was, it was safer and 
better here than in the bullet-riddled 
streets of the city; and ever they 
drew further south and west, to the 
time-chamber and its competent 
crew. Hours of struggling brought 
them at last to a path leading up and 
into the mountain. With sighs of re- 
lief they stretched themselves on the 
ground to rest and eat. 

They remained more than two 
hours, unmoving. It was growing 
late into the afternoon of the second 
day in the mad machine world (the 
wager for forty-eight hours was long 
since forgotten) before they resumed 
their journey, up the mountain pass 
and to the west, away from the 
strange, wonderful, terrible city to 
the comparative peace and safety of 
the desert, where lay, some two hun- 
dred miles away, the time-chamber 
and their retreat to the twenty-first 
century. Thought of that, and the 
easier nature of the road they now 
travelled, improved the spirits of the 



expeditionaries immensely and they 
strode the mountain pass with a 
swing, almost a swagger. 

“We ought to cross these moun- 
tains by nightfall/' Gundry said as 
they stopped for a while at the sum- 
mit of the pass. “By forced marches 
we may get to the time-chamber in a 
week or eight days. We shan't be in 
too good shape at the end of it, but 
that's the best we can do. Maybe the 
crew will send out a search party to 
find us." 

Before taking the long easy slope 
down the further side of the moun- 
tain they turned to take a last look 
at the city, terrible scene of experi- 
ences they would never forget to the 
end of their days. By now the dev- 
astated area in either direction was 
aswarm with salvage and repairing 
machines, scurrying antlike over 
shattered buildings, hauling, lifting, 
carrying, building. Further on the 
towers of the city still raised their 
proud heights into the sky as if de- 
fiant of invaders, and in the great 
motorways the traffic flowed in solid 
streams north and south. But on the 
river the scene had changed. The 
ships of commerce were gone and in 
their place were squadrons of slim, 
sleek grey shapes from whose decks 
protruded low streamlined turrets 
and the sinister barrels of heavy- 
calibre guns. 

CHAPTER VI 

A T A CAVE at the end of the 
pass they spent a fairly 
comfortable night, with a 
log fire collected from the surround- 
ing brush and scrub of the desert. 
They had agreed to rise and move on 
at dawn. But in the chill of the early 
morning hours, Gundry, who was 
keeping watch, was surprised by a 
sudden dull boom of gunfire and the 



MECANICA 



27 



high-pitched whine of shells. Six 
shots followed in succession, coming 
from somewhere up in the mountain. 
Taking a gun he strode out into the 
pass to scan the heights. 

Gunfire broke out again, high up 
and a little to the north. Gundry 
saw angry flashes, saw them break 
out one after the other in a long 
rippling far away into the distance. 
Then guns boomed south of the pass, 
intermittently at first, then with in- 
creasing intensity until the whole line 
of the mountain chain was ablaze 
from end to end. The air shook with 
thunder and lightning, shuddered to 
the whine of shells. Whoever the 
enemy was, he was taking punish- 
ment from a barrage of tremendous 
intensity. From where he stood on 
the pass Gundry could get a rough 
idea of the artillery's numerical 
strength by the coruscation of flashes 
above, and he was convinced that 

those visible alone must be numbered 

\ 

by hundreds. Before long he was 
joined by Janning and the others, 
roused and attracted by the din. The 
spectacle, even to the men almost in- 
ured to the wonders of this world, 
was awe-inspiring. They questioned, 
speculated, wondering how this new 
development would affect their 
chances of escape. Gundry, who 
looked at ease or danger with the 
same emotionless calm, gave small 
hope. 

“There’s no getting through a bar- 
rage like that,” he declared, “we’ll 
have to sit tight until it recedes and 
the attackers go over. If we follow 
’em we may get through whatever is 
on the other side.” 

“Attackers!” cried Farren. “Who 
on earth can be the attackers in a 
fool of a world like this? Do you 
think those batteries will break loose 
and attack, or will it be battalions of 
those impossible motorbike things? 



Man, my head is going round in cir- 
cles with all this.” 

“You’re worse off than I am,” Kel- 
logg was smiling. “I remember I 
dreaded returning to this world after 
seeing such things as we have seen, 
but now that I’m used to it I find 
it interesting. Think of the amount 
of speculation there is in it. It is as 
plain as a pikestaff that for all of 
Janning’s brag mankind has gone un- 
der, to be superseded by these intelli- 
gent machines. For we are all agreed 
that these wonderful things have in- 
telligence. After thinking, I will go 
even further and say that they have 
a temperament.” 

“And how can machines possibly 
have a temperament?” demanded 
Farren, the barrage forgotten in the 
absorption of a possible debate. 

“Easily. Remember the quite un- 
intelligent machines of our own 
world. While kept in order they 
functioned perfectly, but if anything 
went wrong, if a speck of grit got 
into the wheels, the machine went 
bad. A speeding auto, a controlled, 
efficient machine, burst a tire and 
skidded dangerously in all directions, 
killing and destroying. An airplane 
would fall out of control, a wild, help- 
less, destructive thing. A mad ma- 
chine is terrifying, even the normal 
unintelligent machine that we know. 
But when machines evolve an intelli- 
gence — and then go mad — well, we 
have such a world as this.” 

“Good God! What a thought! But 
it’s as logical as any other.” 

T HE BARRAGE went on for hours 
before any change was noticeable. 
It was not definable at first, but by 
and by a new sound mingled with the 
crash of guns above, the unmistak- 
able concussion of bursting shells. 
The enemy was hitting back and hit- 
ting hard. He continued hitting, and 




28 



COSMIC STORIES 



■—■■■■i—————— —fc— —————— 

both sides pounded away at each 
other until the sun was well over the 
mountain peaks. From the cave 
mouth the men watched the course 
of battle intently. The prolonged 
spectacle of bursting explosives grew 
monotonous, but the tension, the 
waiting for whatever unguessable 
danger would spring out next, kept 
them keyed up at high pitch through- 
out the whole long vigil. About mid- 
day, Gundry, who had been surveying 
the desert for some sign of the 
enemy, reported movement on the 
horizon. 

“Can’t make out details but there’s 
plenty of ’em,” he said. “Coming 
this way.” 

It was a vague dark cloud in the 
distance that resolved itself soon into 
a host of shifting specks. Before 
long they were identifiable as mov- 
ing vehicles. They enlarged rapidly 
and were seen to be spread out in 
broad formation right across the 
plain. Their details became visible 
through binoculars and Farren’s first 
question was answered. These were 
attackers, the first wave of them. 

Tanks. Enormous tanks. Great 
rolling masses of steel, mobile forts 
built to cross mountain, plain and 
jungle, fighting as they came. Field- 
guns protruded from the streamlined 
barbettes crowning them, belching 
fire. Between them scuttled myriads 
of smaller tanks, of about thirty 
tons weight, blazing away with light- 
er artillery and machineguns. Be- 
hind this fleet of desert battleships 
came huge armored cars carrying 
still heavier guns, coming more slow- 
ly and firing with precision. Right at 
the back was mobile artillery, great 
howitzers mounted on tractors. These 
stopped at last, settled themselves 
and fired ranging salvoes which de- 
veloped rapidly into a counterbar- 
rage. The tanks rolled inexorably 



on to the foot of the mountains amid 
a deluge of shellfire. The earth 
quaked under the bombardment. 
Gundry estimated that the defenders 

had guns of twelve-inch calibre at 
least, far back behind the mountains, 
firing over them, getting ranges by 
means unknown. 

A terrible, majestic sight, that at- 
tack ; but equally terrible was the de- 
fense. For the first time the ex- 
peditionaries saw that the guns had 
come down the mountainside and 
were visible. Machineguns crouched 
behind rocks, sputtering flame; long, 
slim anti-tank guns nosed out from 
cover and poured a withering fire 
into the lighter tanks, joined by light 
mortars that barked in chorus fur- 
ther up. Higher still, but just visible, 
were the six-inch howitzers, firing 
rapidly into the further lines of 
heavy tanks. Despite the volcanic 
destruction they faced, the huge ma- 
chines rolled on and up. 

Up and over they went, crushing 
the first line of machineguns and 
anti-tank rifles in their path. These 
light pieces had scarcely made dents 
in them. Even six-inch shells seemed 
to make little impression. It was 
only frequent and direct hits from 
the colossal twelve-inch pieces back 
in the mountains that offered serious 
resistance. This fire grew heavier, 
more frequent and more accurate. 
The earth shuddered and shook. 
Scarcely a mile from the watching 
men a tank blew up in a column of 
flame, struck directly by a twelve- 
inch salvo, and in the cave rocks 
loosened and fell from the roof. It 
was time for retreat. The cave might 
be blocked by falling rock and the 
men entombed, but the risk was bet- 
ter than the certainty of destruction 
in that rising inferno, for tanks were 
advancing upon the pass and shellfire 




MECANICA 



29 



grew perilously near. Gundry shouted 
for the retreat. 

PBHHE CAVE proved to be a long 
tunnel and a draft of air indi- 
cated that it was open at the other 
end, providing a safe exit in case the 
first end became blocked. The men 

went in deep, guided by their power- 
ful torches, and far within, when the 
noise of battle was deadened, they 
accepted the inevitable and struck 
camp again. They were there all day 
and the following night. They knew 
nothing of how the battle pro- 
gressed. Saw nothing of the initial 
success of the giant tanks as they 
ploughed their way to the top of the 
mountains; nothing of the heavy 
losses the tanks sustained, or of their 
final defeat and annihilation when 
the huge artillery pieces finally got 
the exact range and scored one di- 
rect hit after another, rending and 
smashing the great machines like 
heavy boots trampling on a child's 
toys ; nothing of the fast and furious 
counter-attack, when wave after 
wave of heavy tanks, smaller than 
the first monsters but still huge, 
poured out of the mountain passes 
and rolled down to the armored car3 
and mobile artillery on the plain like 
a flood; or of the final destruction of 
an enemy that never retreated but 
continued to fight blindly and insane- 
ly until it was smashed out of ac- 
tion for ever. The men only sat and 
talked, wondering — wondering — 

Until at last a silence settled over 
the world, a silence that might have 
meant the end of the world. Deep 
in the cave the expeditionaries felt 
that the tortured earth was at the 
end of its agony, that the machines 
that made it their battleground no 
longer ran riot over its face, and that 
it was now safe for men, once Lords 



of Creation, to come into the open 
again. 

The wrack of battle was spread 
away all over mountain and desert 
as far as the eye could see. Here 
lay overturned guns; there, wrecked 
tanks and armored cars; great slabs 
of steel plate and broken gun-barrels, 
or just mere masses of wrecked, 
mangled tortured iron. The men 
picked their way through the fan- 
tastic maze, heading briskly west- 
ward by Pascoe’s compass. But 
though their steps were firm their 
hearts were heavy and their minds 
clouded, preyed with the unspoken 
thought of Kellogg: that they were 
mere helpless insects in a jungle of 
metal carnivora. Even Janning failed 
to recapture his normal truculent de- 
fiance. His helpless arm and shoul- 
der, which was not improved by lack 
of proper attention, sapped the splen- 
did strength of his wire-and-whip- 
cord body and lowered the resistance 
of his sturdy mind. Worse than any- 
thing was the overwhelming evidence 
that seemed to prove that Kellogg, 
with all his morbidity, was right. 
Worst of all was that horrible, that 
unbelievable element that made these 
impossible machines still more im- 
possible — the dark, sticky liquid that 
flowed sluggishly from the machines 
and stained the sands of the desert 
a rusty reddish-brown. 

“In my worst vision of the fall of 
Man," murmured Kellogg to himself, 
“I never imagined that machines 
would shed blood." 

Gundry had seen service in the 
French Foreign Legion and knew 
what forced marching meant. He got 
the expedition going at a hard, 
steady pace with five minutes breath- 
ing space at the end of every hour. 
Of the five men he was the only one 
who had kept in mind the ordeal in 
front of them, the journey of nearly 




30 



COSMIC STORIES 



two hundred miles across desert land 
to the time-chamber. 

Being a man who took facts as 
they came he just shrugged his 
shoulders and thought no more of it. 
But he was wise enough to keep the 
knowledge to himself; no sense in 
giving the others something more to 
worry over — they would come to that 
soon enough. 

A T THE end of six hours march- 
ing they stopped for a meal. 
They were still in reasonably good 
shape, and had been lucky enough to 
come across a clump of trees and 
scrub in which was a good fresh- 
water spring. With good stocks of 
water and feeling thoroughly re- 
freshed, they resumed the march. By 
now they were drawing away from 
the enormous battle area, where dev- 
astation seemed to spread away as 
far as the range of super-heavy artil- 
lery permitted. It did not change, 
that silent landscape of smashed and 
twisted metal. An iron army had rid- 
den out of nowhere, and in the desert 
had been annihilated. It seemed to 
have been completely self-contained 
and selfsupporting, for there were no 
signs of supply trains or any of the 
regular support of a human army. 
But obviously these things had come 
from somewhere, as had the air fleet. 
Another city, no doubt, further away 
to the west and beyond the location 
of the time chamber; and these two 
cities were at war. Machines at war ! 
What could their motive be — how 
could they possibly have a motive? 
That question sank back dully into 
the subconscious minds of the ex- 
peditionaries as they put their backs 
into the task of covering the longest 
possible distance in the shortest pos- 
sible time. 

Some twenty-odd miles from the 
mountains the damage was less 



heavy and less widespread. Direct 
hits had been much fewer, and 
though all machines were immobil- 
ized, still many seemed to be undam- 
aged. Some guns remained upright, 
as if ready for firing. In their path 
the expeditionaries came across a 
light tank, one of the thirty-tonners, 
partly overturned but leaning against 
a rock that supported it. There was 
a gash in its upper turret, over which 
was a mess of dried and hardened 
blood, but otherwise it seemed un- 
damaged. Gundry had an idea and 
climbed up the back of it to get in. 

Twenty minutes of examination 
told him what he wanted to know. 
The tank was, of course, a kind of 
super-robot and was now out of ac- 
tion as far as driving itself went. 
The blood had gushed from some 
case below the turret, but that was 
too smashed to show anything; the 
machine, if intelligent, had been 
“killed,” but the mechanism was still 
there and it was practically the same 
as that of a twenty-first century 
tank. Gundry called to the others 
who were examining the outside, and 
announced cheerfully that from now 
on they could drive to the time cham- 
ber in comparative comfort. Wearily 
but in better spirits, they piled in. 

There was room enough inside the 
machine and it travelled smoothly, 
but the noise of it and the abomin- 
able mingled odors of oil and blood 
took away all pleasure from the ride. 
When gear was stowed Farren tried 
to clear away the mess of blood with 
the sleeve torn from his shirt and a 
canteen of water, and so made things 
a little more comfortable. Janning, 
glad to rid his mind of Kellogg's 
somber theorizing, dragged himself 
around to examine the machine's 
armament. It carried a three-inch 
gun amidships, still in firing order, a 
ten-pounder in the upper turret 



MECANICA 



31 



which was damaged and two heavy 
machineguns, one out of order. It 
had entered the battle without firing 
a shot and the magazine was full. 
Janning felt better after that. 

With Gundry 's skilled piloting they 
made seventy miles an hour across 
the open desert. Scrub and trees 
thickened, and by low ranges of hills 
were occasional small woods. The 
tank ploughed through one of these 
woods in its path, rolling down stout 
trunks like twigs, over hills taking 
steep gradients without slowing. 
From this range a road curved out 
to the west and Gundry made for 
it, speeding as he went. At one 
hundred and twelve miles per hour 
the tank reached maximum speed. 
Soon they reached a main-road cross- 
ing, where other cars joined them 
and sped toward the buildings of a 
village or small town which showed 
themselves in the distance. 

I T WAS a small town, and part of 
it was on fire. As the tank rolled 
through the outer suburbs the noise 
of gunfire and crash of falling build- 
ings was heard. The streets were 
thronged with racing, roaring motor- 
cycles, all carrying guns, heading for 
the further side where the trouble 
seemed to be. The tank was not 
noticed at all, save for machines that 
carefully scuttled out of its way, and 
it seemed to be taken for granted. 
Nothing loath, Gundry followed the 
stream and the others limbered up 
their weapons. Janning and Far- 
ren went in the fore to stand by 
the three-incher. 

The town was a derelict place with 
many buildings fallen as if from age 
and neglect, and the road was in a 
bad state of disrepair. Potholes were 
plentiful, not large enough to in- 
commode the huge war-machine but 
quite an obstacle for the motorcycles, 



which bumped and pitched over the 
roads and frequently overturned, and 
overset others in their wake. The 
tank bored on flattening these heaps 
of fuming wreckage under its tract- 
ors, shoving aside any luckless ma- 
chines not spry enough to get out 
of the way. Ready for still more 
action if need be, the expeditionaries 
stood ready at posts within. In the 
centre of the town the road passed 
through a broad square, divided by 
gardens, and on the further side of 
this houses were aflame. The square 
was almost blocked with stationary 
motorcycles and small tractors with 
mounted machineguns that poured 
fire into the roads and houses be- 
fore them, and from these places, 
from invisible sources, a small but 
powerful volume of fire was returned. 

“Who in hell is fighting back from 
cover?” demanded Janning, with 
something of his old fierceness. “The 
machines have been fighting in the 
open — damnation, do you think — ?” 

He caught Farren’s eye. For an 
instant they gazed breathlessly at 
each other, amazed, questioning, in- 
credulous, each with the same 
thought. 

“It's impossible!” Farren cried. 

“Pm damned if it is!” shouted 
Janning, “Come on, Gundry, into 
’em!” 

The tank smashed its way across 
the square under the soldier's firm, 
skilled hand, straight for a road 
strewn with debris from blazing 
buildings on either side that were 
about to collapse. Immediately the 
defenders concentrated their light 
but bitter fire on the new r attacker, 
but above the noise of gunfire Jan- 
ning's straining ears caught the un- 
mistakable sound he listened for, the 
shouts and yells of despairing and 
defiant men . 

“Don't shoot, blast you!” roared 



32 



COSMIC STORIES 



Janning unreasonably, “We're 
friends, allies, we're fighting with 
you!" 

Then they were in the inferno, 
steel jacketed bullets bouncing like 
hail from the sides of the tank. Be- 
hind it sounded the roar of high ex- 
plosives and the collapse of under- 
mined buildings. The road now was 
blocked and impassable to either side. 
Well past the blazing line the ex- 
peditionaries found bullets striking 
the machine in the rear. Gundry 
swerved the tank round till it faced 
the attacking machines. 

“Give 'em a demonstration!" Jan- 
ning shouted, and with swift and 
rapid assistance from the others the 
three-incher was loaded and fired at 
point-blank range into the thronged 
square. Shell after shell they poured 
at the attackers, a curse with each 
one, until the gun-barrel was almost 
redhot, the magazine empty and the 
square a mass of flaming wreckage. 

Gunfire ceased. The war-machines 
were still and silent, still with vic- 
tory or roaring to destruction. Jan- 
ning did not wait but swung open 
a door in the side of the tank and 
leapt into the street. 

“Come on out, you sons of a gun!" 
he roared, waving his uninjured right 
arm excitably. “Here's the relief 
force. Where the hell are you?" 

They came. Doors flew open and 
out they came, armed and defiant but 
surprised and hopeful at the appear- 
ance of an unexpected ally. About 
a dozen of them. Men. 

CHAPTER VII 

T HEY WERE a sturdy lot, 
rough, hairy, hardbitten 
young fellows dressed in 
skins cut with rude skill into fairly 
good clothes. They carried good 
rifles which they held at the ready, 



though more from habit than from 
any suspicion of the expeditionaries. 
Janning flung down his revolver and 
ran to the foremost of them with 
extended hand. After one first look 
of amazement the man threw down 
his gun likewise and seized the pre- 
ferred hand in both his, shook it 
vigorously. 

“Done it at last!" he shouted, 
“Beaten the damn things an' got 
hold of one! Who are you, fella? 
What’s your clan?" 

Janning never had time to answer 
those questions. Came a sound of 
fast and noisy machines and a squad 
of "motorcycles rounded a corner, that 
burst into gunfire on the instant. 
Half the little group of men was 
mown down before they could shoot 
back, before the one-handed Janning 
could get out his other gun, cursing 
as he fumbled. He heard late yells 
of warning, the roar of guns on the 
tank. His gun was out. A charging 
machine was almost upon him, shoot- 
ing wildly. A chance bullet smashed 
his gun-hand, then a huge body 
swept him aside and from the corner 
of his eye he saw for an instant 
the man whose hand he had shaken, 
charging at the machine with a gun 
raised like a club. Something like a 
redhot iron seared his scalp and then 
he knew nothing more. 

He came to slowly, his mind a 
confused blur and his body a mass 
of pain. There was noise around him, 
things shaking, and the sound of 
voices. Brandy went down his throat, 
scalding. He choked, gritted his 
teeth and tried to sit up, supported 
by a friendly arm, to find himself 
looking into the fine, open features 
of the man who had saved his life. 
He grinned faintly through a gasp of 
pain. 

“Mighty good work, fella," he 
gritted. “I'll do — ugh — as much for 



MECANICA 



33 



you, some time,” he coughed heavi- 
ly, shaking his whole frame, “and 
where the — hell — are we now?” 

“Nearly back at the time cham- 
ber,” he heard Kellogg’s soothing 
voice. “Don’t excite yourself, Jan- 
ning. You’re in no fit state for that.” 

“Hell!” He struggled to rise but 
Kellogg’s firm hand gently held him 
back. He relaxed, panting, looked up 
at the man of the thirty-first cen- 
tury. “What’s your name, brother?” 

“Smith. Just plain Jim Smith. The 
fellers here told me you are the time 
travellers we read about in the old 
histories. No wonder you could beat 
these damned things. In your time 
the machines had no brains an’ you 
kept ’em in their proper place. Things 
have changed since then — and how 
they have!” 

“So we’ve seen. How did it hap- 
pen? What is all this damned place, 
anyway?” 

Urg, HAT’S quite a story.” The 
-“-man called Jim Smith leaned 
back on the oil tank where he sat and 
stretched his legs comfortably. 
“ ’Bout time I told you, since you 
must have come here to find out 
things. Well, it was only a coupla 
hundred years ago things got out of 
hand. The books say Man was on 
top of the world then. We’d got 
the whole planet under control, right 
from the weather in the upper at- 
mosphere to the currents at the bot- 
tom of the ocean and gravity in the 
middle of the earth. We could travel 
to anywhere on the globe and talk 
to anyone anywhere else. We had 
super-machines to do all the dirty 
work for us. Nobody did a stroke of 
hard labor unless he felt like it, but 
we didn’t let the grass grow under 
our feet. No, sir! We were a live 
race — we made things and did things. 



There wasn’t a damned thing under 
the sun we couldn’t do.” 

“The twenty-fifth century, and all 
its glory,” murmured Kellogg. 

“You know it, eh? You been here. 
So you know the old books aren’t 
lyin’, as some fools say. Thank you , 
sir. Well, as I was sayin’, things 
were going fine and large for hun- 
dreds of years and folks thought that 
all dangers were over. Hell, were 
they wrong! 

“We had thinking machines then. 
They did no end of cute things like 
men could never do for themselves 
in a lifetime. But they were harm- 
less. Nobody ever thought they’d 
become dangerous — they’d have 
laughed at the idea. But then some 
criminal damned fool who should’ve 
known better made a living think- 
ing machine. Yes sir. Living. God 
knows how he did it, what salts he 
put on his wires and in his cells to 
make a steel thing work like a 
human brain, but I know 'it was 
something ghastly. Some composi- 
tion with human blood in it. And 
the damned thing became alive. 

“Clever? My God, was it clever! 
It must have been. With its half- 
human feelings it got the idea of 
reproduction somehow and it got to 
work building others like itself. Not 
big ones like the original, you un- 
derstand, but smaller, down to the 
size of a watch (yes, we still know 
what watches are, even if we are 
half savages). It got the things 
hitched on to other machines, all 
kinds of ’em, so that they could op- 
erate quite intelligently by them- 
selves. The thing became quite fa- 
mous and influential by then, and it 
offered to run all machines on earth 
for the World Governments. Of 
course they didn’t see through the 
idea and took the offer at face value. 
That tore it. 



84 



COSMIC STORIES 



t m 1 " “ 1 ■" - - ' 

“Somehow the Machine got some 
fool idea that it was a superior be- 
ing, and that it was meant by its 
destiny to rule an empire of superior 
beings. Most of all it was mad to 
produce its own race of superior be- 
ings and rule them. So nearly every 
machine on earth had these little 
brains of all sizes and grades of 
capacity fitted to them and they be- 
gan to think and work for themselves 
and get the same mad-crazy idea ot‘ 
their boss into their tin skulls. When 
he thought he was ready he gave 
the order. And the machines struck. 
Very cleanly they did it too. It was 
the first war on earth for ages and 
to do the job they dug up all the 
old fire-arms out of the museums and 
shot the human beings wholesale. 
Very accurately and economically too. 
The Machine didn’t want human 
bodies and human substances going 
to waste. He needed them to keep 
all his other machines alive and 
working. 

“You see, these think-tanks have 
to have human blood and nothing 
else to keep them alive, and for his 
empire the Machine would not only 
need millions of gallons but a per- 
manent reservoir of it for the future 
of his race. It probably annoyed him 
to be so dependent on human beings, 
but there it was. Anyway, he meant 
to preserve them as we preserved 
cattle, and feed on us in the same 
way. 

WAS just a bit too quick 
and a bit too cocky when he 
started, though. He got all the Gov- 
ernments out of the way and dis- 
organized the mass of the people, 
and thought he’d done the trick. He 
forgot about the armies which the 
Governments kept up for show pur- 
poses. These armies had not been 
to war for centuries, but when they 



realized what was happening all over 
the world and who was responsible 
for it they didn’t stop to think. They 
went out on the war-path and 
bombed the Machine to bits. That 
may have stopped the worst, but 
there were still millions of machines 
left and they acted together like a 
body without a head — just thrashed 
and smashed around until there was 
hardly anything of the human race 
left. But some escaped. They got 
away into desert places and under 
the earth to places where machines 
never went, and they survived and 
kept human intelligence alive on 
earth. 

“So that was that, and here we 
are. We’ve survived, and we were too 
deeply civilized to go right back to 
barbarism, though we’ve had a 
tough struggle to keep going. The 
machines need us for their own ex- 
istence, need v our blood and body- 
chemicals, and they hunt us. We 
keep out of their way as much as 
we can. We manage to get our 
food well enough, we’ve got weapons 
of a sort and books. Sometimes we 
can get things out of the old cities 
the machines have abandoned. That’s 
what we were doing when you found 
us. But it’s hellish risky work. 
We’re scattered and disorganized, 
and we’re still so plentiful and pro- 
lific the machines can hunt us and 
shoot us wholesale, and that keeps 
us disorganized.* But our time will 
come. The machines don’t seem to 
care how much they slaughter each 
other. 

“Every other year or so they go 
to war with each other, town against 
town, city against city. Usually over 
hunting rights. There’s a new war 
on now, and from what this here 
gentleman tells me you’ve all been 
through the front line. This desert 
has been debated land for years. 



MECANICA 



85 



Every now and then when my clan 
risks a trip from the mountain caves 
out into the open we get chased by 
roving machines out of the cities. 
They’re always squabbling over hunt- 
ing rights — this is the sixth war 
they’ve had in the last ten years. 

“So there you are, gents — my story 
in return for yours,” Jim Smith stood 
up, stretched brawny limbs, “Not 
pretty, is it? But that’s life, life 
as we live it today at any rate. Maybe 
you can jump a hundred years in 
your time-jigger and see if it’s any 
better. Thanks for listening so at- 
tentive. I’m a teacher of sorts, when 
I can get hold of the right books, 
and hist’ry is my best subject. I 
always like a chance to spout about 
it, ’specially to intelligent, cultivated 
gents like you, though God only 
knows they are rare enough nowa- 
days.” He yawned hugely. “Hell, I 
could do with a smoke. Haven’t had 
one in three months. Got any baccy, 
t*oss?” 

Pascoe fumbled in his pack, numb- 
ly, mechanically, unmindful of the 
tank’s bad ventilation and the dan- 
ger from inflammable oil. His mind 
was too overcome by the man’s ap- 
palling story, so casually told. For 
a while as Jim Smith rolled himself 
a cigarette no man in the tank spoke. 

«Y 0U WERE right, Kellogg,” 
-*■ whispered Farren at last, 
“Mankind is doomed. Did ever the 
eternal stars look down upon a wild- 
er, more insane, more fantastic spec- 
tacle than that of a world where 



man is a beast hunted by the crea- 
tions of his own hand?” 

“Yes,” said Kellogg, almost inaudi- 
bly, “Imagine it if you can, try to 
believe that it is true — machines go 
to war for the right to hunt human 
beings !” 

“You’re wrong, damn you,” Jan- 
ning snarled, eyes blazing, almost 
feverish. He dragged himself up- 
right by sheer force of will, gripped 
Jim Smith’s arm as hard as his 
wrecked right hand allowed. “We’re 
beaten all right, but we’re not bro- 
ken. We never will be. You’re a 
man. Smith, and I’m proud to know 
you. We’re coming back, I say, in 
the time chamber, and we’re coming 
ready for a campaign. We’re bring- 
ing armament. We’re organizing 
every man-jack alive on earth and 
we’ll wipe that damned crawling 
junk-heap right off the face of it. 
We will, I say! Won’t we, Jim?” 

Jim Smith took the weak, feverish 
man by the arms and lowered him 
gently to a sitting position, stared in- 
to the indomitable eyes with a look 
of friendliness, almost tenderness. 
He’d looked on strong men suffering 
before. 

“Brother, we’re going to do just 
that.” 

Gundry said nothing. His latest 
campaign was over, and scarcely a 
mile in front of his victorious ma- 
chine stood the time chamber and 
its means of a prudent, orderly and 
strategic retreat to the security of 
the twenty-first century. 





Juf (lohesit 14J, Jl&umd&i 



(Author of “A Green Cloud Came,** “The Abyss,** etc.) 

When the inebriated experimenters invited the Martians to come to Earth, they didn't 
really mean it, but whan the Martians took them at their word and sent a thousand 

armed ships ... 

W HITLOWE’S EYES called softly. No answer from the 

bulged; as if in a trance cellar. “Gary!” he repeated, raising 
he continued working his voice slightly. At the noise, the 
the can-opener around and around wicked serpentine head before him 
the container of beans. “Gary,” he swayed and grew nearer. A side- 



36 




THE MARTIANS ARE COMING 



37 



winder, thought Whitlowe, and here 
am I with nothing more lethal than 
a can-opener near me. What was 
holding up Gary? 

A big head poked through the cel- 
lar door. “What’s eating — ?” his col- 
league began. Abruptly he glimpsed 
the rattler and disappeared down the 
cellar agan. "Traitor!” hissed Whit- 
lowe from the corner of his mouth. 
The snake darted its tongue convul- 
sively and the man cranked at the 
beans convulsively, not stirring a 
centimeter from the kitchen chair. 
One move, he thought, and — 

Blum! The snake collapsed as if 
it had been cut from a string ; Whit- 
lowe dropped the beans, and the can 
went clattering along the floor. 
“Thanks,” he said not turning. Then 
he stood up shakily, reached for a 
bottle. When a full half-pint of the 
stuff had gurgled down his throat, he 
mutely passed it to Gary. The big 
man frowned and put it down. 

“No time for comedy,” he com- 
mented. “Do you see any more 
around ?” 

“Wasn’t that one' enough?” asked 
Whitlowe, spurning the limp corpse 
of the rattler. “I spilled the beans for 
its sake.” 

Gary was reloading his pistol. 
“Now that’s settled,” he said, “let’s 
start unpacking. I don’t think there’s 
anything more dangerous around 
now than mosquitoes.” 

“That’s okay — I’m well anointed 
with citronella.” They passed into 
the living room of the shack and at- 
tacked divers well-padded boxes and 
crates. Whitlowe tore off the top of a 
huge case and smiled happily. “Sweet 
of you,” he murmured, lifting from 
its depths one of many gleaming bot- 
tles. 

"Okay,” said Gary shortly. “If 
you can't work when you’re sober, 
then I have to do the logical thing.” 



There was silence for a long while 
as the two scattered haphazard bits 
and sections of apparatus on the 
plank floor of the shack. A yellow- 
jacket buzzed aimlessly about until, 
having made up its mind that Gary 
was planning it no good, it veered 
from its course and stung him on the 
elbow. “Dammit!” roared the big 
man, slamming his huge palm against 
the insect. He turned slowly on 
Whitlowe. “You !” he said, breathing 
heavily. 

"Cut it out, Gary,” begged his col- 
league. “We’ve gone over it all a 
dozen times.” 

“You miserable little drunk,” 
whispered Gary poisonously; “not 
enough that you lose us a good job, 
but you have to publish a declaration 
to the world that we — just a couple 
of half-baked feature writers — are 
going to communicate with Mars!” 

“Well,” hedged Whitlowe, “it 
seemed like a good idea at the time.” 
Then, with a flash of spirit, he 
snapped: “And what’s more, we can 
do it! We didn’t work three years of 
overtime for nothing — you’d be just 
content to stick at the grind until 
people got tired of us and we were 
canned. Our Public! What a prize 
collection of chumps and mutts they 
must be to swallow the tripe we’ve 
been dishing out. ‘Will Future Man 
Be Bald?’ ‘Will Giant Ants Rule the 
World?’ ‘When the Moon Falls, 
What?’ It’s about time we quit that 
junk and did something. You’d never 
have dared to publish our findings, so 
I did.” 

Gary grinned sourly. “So here we 
are in the great North woods,” he 
stated, “the eyes of the world on us, 
and loaded down with scads of equip- 
ment paid for by subscription. And 
if we don’t communicate with Mars, 
where are we? In jail, that’s where i 
— fraud— obtaining money under ! 






COSMIC STORIES 



false pretenses. Hell! Let’s get to 
work!” 

A BOUT THREE HOURS later 
empty bottles and a maze of 
gleaming tubes indicated that some- 
thing had been accomplished. “And 
a good job, too,” proclaimed Whit- 
lowe, rocking on his heels. 

“It’ll do,” grunted the other. “How 
about power?” 

Whitlowe unpacked a new fuel 
battery, then proceeded to make in- 
tricate alterations on it with the aid 
of the junk piled in the center of the 
floor. “What setting?” he asked, fin- 
gering a dial. 

“Lowest possible amperage; high- 
est possible voltage.” 

“Right,” answered the small, dark 
man, fumbling with a pressure 
switch. He connected the heavy leads 
of the battery to studs in the mech- 
anism. Gary slid indicators on a 
computing machine, referring to a 
planetary chart. “It’s aimed,” he 
said, lifting the weight which set a 
clockwork mechanism into motion. 
Quiet ticking meant that the thrice 
bent beam of the apparatus was fol- 
lowing Mars in its sweep about the 
sun. 

“Is it aimed?” 

Gary nodded. “Any time you say 
we can turn it on.” 

Whitlowe reached for a bottle and 
fortified himself. “Okay — I’m 
ready.” He placed himself before a 
compound lens as big as his head and 
snapped on a battery of cold mer- 
cury vapor lamps which bathed him 
in a metallic glare. Silently Gary 
turned a key and closed a simple 
knife switch. Their four eyes swiv- 
elled automatically to a copper plate 
set screenwise in the tangle of opera- 
tions. There were a few flashes of 
light, then the screen went dark. 
“Something’s wrong,” muttered 



Gary, then, as he turned to Whit- 
lowe, “Hey, watch yourself!” 

“What?” asked Whitlowe, stum- 
bling against the battery. Tsk, tsk- 
ing, he reached down to replace the 
connections he’d jarred loose. Now 
which went where? He put them in 
feeling more and more sure that they 
were bollixed up. One seemed to be 
left over, then he remembered that 
it was the other half of a double con- 
nection. “Eenie, meenie, meinie 
mo!” He rammed it home and 
straightened up with a happy smile. 

“Pretty high up,” said Gary 
thoughtfully. Whitlowe gasped: with 
disconcerting suddenness a scene had 
leaped onto the plate — unstereoscopic 
and without color, but recognizable. 

Gary turned a heavy wheel the 
smallest fraction of a sector ; the 
scene went black. “Field of vision 
went underground,” said the big 
man. He reversed the wheel with a 
lighter touch ; the screen changed 
from black to reddish brown. 

“City!” gasped Whitlowe. 

“Yeah.” Fascinated, they scanned 
the copper plate. It was as though it 
were hanging about five feet from 
the street of this Martian metropolis, 
while scurrying creatures about the 
size of men darted dizzily about on 
all sides. There were no vehicles to 
be seen. 

The two men looked at one an- 
other. “Very ordinary, I think,” said 
Whitlowe. 

“Seems as if you’re right. Frank 
R. Paul would be horribly disap- 
pointed. Wonder if they have eyes.” 

“We’ll soon find out. Unless our 
calculations are imaginary, a visual 
image of this plate, showing what- 
ever is directly before it — in this in- 
stance, us — should be neatly project- 
ed just a bit above their heads. They 
ought to see the plate before long.” 

One of the darting creatures was 



THE MARTIANS ARE COMING 



39 



heading straight for the plate, its 
knobby head down. Some thirty feet 
away it stopped short. 

“Hyperperipheral tactility,” mut- 
tered'Whitlowe. “Why doesn’t it look 
up?” 

The creature did, obediently. “I 
was shielding my eyes,” it remarked 
over the scores of millions of miles. 
“You are very brightly lit.” 

Whitlowe switched off half of the 
mere battery. “That better?” he 
asked. 

“Yes, thank you,” replied the crea- 
ture. 

“May we ask some questions?” 
broke in Gary, thrusting his head be- 
fore the lens. 

“How do you do ? Certainly ; what- 
ever you wish.” 

“About our communication, first. 
We can understand you because we 
had an operation performed on what 
we call the Cheyney-Biddle area of 
our brains. This so converts and 
awakens the translation faculty that 
any language not too remote from 
Terrestrial thought-processes be- 
comes intelligible to us. Are you ac- 
tually speaking — vocally, I mean?” 

“Hardly,” replied the creature with 
a sort of whimsical inflection. “It 
seems most probable that this opera- 
tion of which you speak has had 
more far-reaching results than you 
think. You are enabled to receive 
basic thought-impressions and trans- 
late them into your own language. 
Most likely your friend does not re- 
ceive the precise impressions as you 
— the wording is different.” 

“But what of you?” asked Gary. 
“How do you receive impressions of 
us?” 

“I’m sending through a sort of 
static discharge engendered by the 
friction of two special members. I 
perceive your thoughts as etheric dis- 
turbances. Interesting, isn’t it?” The 



creature’s mask-like face contorted 
and grew lighter, as far as they could 
judge from the monochrome of the 
screen, but these changes were ac- 
companied by a wholly non-exist- 
ent burst of rich laughter from the 
sounding unit. 

“I wonder,” said Whitlowe, “what 
that sounds like to an ordinary per- 
son.” 

“Probably a creepy conglomera- 
tion of totally unrecognizable 
sounds,” replied the creature. “And 
now,” it went on, “may I beg to leave 
you for awhile. You two are pretty 
gruesome-appearing monstrosities to 
me, and I can feel a psychological re- 
vulsion coming on. I think you’ll feel 
one, yourself, pretty soon. Suppose 
we switch off and contact later ; after 
we’ve become accustomed to each 
other, it won’t be so bad. But, just 
now, the first enthusiasm and scien- 
tific elan is beginning to wear off. I’ll 
be sick as a dog in a few moments.” 

Gary grinned. “I wonder,” he 
mused, “what the Martian equivalent 
of that phrase really is — if it exists 
in the first place.” He waved goodbye 
to the creature and turned the wheel 
abruptly. The screen went black. 

A few moments later Whitlowe 
was leaning over the sink. “Get a 
move on,” said Gary weakly, “it’s my 
turn now.” 

T HE MARTIAN was friendly. It 
brought around several spidery 
friends who stared through the win- 
dow and answered questions as well 
as they could. One imposing, Daddy- 
Long-Legs finally appeared and the 
others made way for it. 

“Hello!” it said abruptly. 

“How do you do?” answered Whit- 
lowe. “Are you an official?” 

“Official ? Bah — Director, young 
man — Director!” grunted the Mar- 
tian. 



40 



COSMIC STORIES 



“Did he say Dictator ?" broke in 
Gary. 

“Director/' corrected the Martian. 
“Coordinator - in - Chief. Chairman. 
President. Planet Manager." 

“Oh!" replied Gary. 

“Now — about this thing of yours. 
I mean your dashed window, or 
whatever it is." 

“Yes?" 

“Understand — friendship, cordial 
relations, interchange of ideas, and 
all that — but privacy. Insist upon 
privacy. No prying without permis- 
sion, understood? Agreed?" 

“Certainly. Anything else?" 

The aged creature considered. 
“Yes. There is. Young man — you 
might as well know that we're in des- 
perate straits up here. Carry on, and 
all that — but no show. Understand?" 

Whitlowe was trying not to laugh. 
It had been such fun to think of the 
Martian as a member of the British 
aristocracy. And now all the speeches 
came out to correspond to his impres- 
sion. The more he tried to control 
himself, the more stagily English the 
Martian speech became. 

“I'm afraid not, your excellency," 
said Gary. 

“Pah! Water, you know. Going 
fast. Rationed as things are — 
haven't had a water-bath for years. 
Dashed impertinence — chap of my 
age and all that. What I mean — un- 
derstand?" 

“No," replied Whitlowe. 

“Uh — no? This contraption of 
yours — thingumbob — just what can 
it do? How does it work?" 

“It's almost wholly psychological," 
explained Gary. “Our apparatus" — 
he tilted the lens a bit so that the 
maze of equipment could be seen — 
“is only a sort of transformer for 
stepping up the latent clairvoyant 
faculties of our race. You're work- 
ing on our power, you know — you 



don't seem to have the faculty your- 
self." 

“Ah? Your power precious? I 
mean, I should go off?" 

“Not at all!" cried the Earthmen. 
“We have all we need and then 
more." 

“Oh. Wouldn’t want to inconven- 
ience you. We Martians — quite con- 
siderate and all that — have to be, you 
know. Even though we did lick the 
damned mammals once before. Un- 
derstand?" 

“Nope. Please explain." 

“Master race and all that. Con- 
flict — struggle. They or we. We won 
out — centuries ago. Still have rec- 
ords. Mammals — great ugly things 
with hair. Nothing personal — under- 
stand?" 

“Of course," said Whitlowe, drain- 
ing a pint bottle. “But what wers 
you saying about water?" 

“Yes. Water — damned ash of hy- 
drogen — waste product really. But 
we haven't enough to go around. 
What I mean — can your contraption 
— thingumbob — send us some every 
now and then?" 

Whitlowe looked around for Gary. 
“Excuse me, sir," he said hastily into 
the lens. “I'll have to find my part- 
ner before I could answer that. 
Cheerio." 

He switched off the screen. 
“Gary!" he yelled, looking wildly 
around. No colleague. There was a 
smashing of glass from the cellar; 
quick as thought Whitlowe popped 
down the rickety stairs. The big man 
was wallowing in a litter of bottles, 
mostly empty, and crooning softly to 
himself. 

“Gary ! For — " 

He looked up owlishly. “Not a 
drinking man ordinarily," he inter- 
rupted stubbornly. “But any time I 
find myself talking to a bunch of 
half-baked giant spiders eleven tril- 




THE MARTIANS ARE COMING 



41 



lion miles away — well!” He reached 
for another bottle and gulped noisily. 

The little dark man grinned. 
“First time I’ve seen you stewed 
since college,” he stated happily. “If 
I join you, will you come up and con- 
sult with our friends? They want us 
to broadcast them some water — 
they’ve been thirsty for years and 
years.” He poured himself two fin- 
gers — widely separated, of course — 
of brandy and tossed it off. 

Gary began to sob. “Poor things. 
Poor thirsty little Martians, \yith all 
the water we have here on Earth, we 
can’t send them one little drop.” 

“Yes,” agreed Whitlowe. “Poor 
Martians.” He finished the bottle. 

Gary was weeping copiously now. 
“Did you see the way they looked at 
us? So friendly and trusting. Most 
sweet little spiders I ever did see. 
And they can’t have any water — 
can’t have a bath or a shower or a 
swim all their life.” 

Whitlowe felt something big rising 
in his throat. “Something must be 
done,” he said. “In fact, something 
will be done.” 

He rose to his feet. “Come,” he 
urged, “since Mahomet cannot go to 
the mountain ; the mountain will 
come to Mahomet. We’ll issue a 
blanket invitation to the Martians to 
come to Earth and make their new 
home here. Plenty of water — plenty 
of big, beautiful wet water for every- 
body !” 

Gary kissed him. 

W HITLOWE SWEPT BACK a 
lock of dark hair and faced the 
Presidium. “Gentlemen of the Com- 
mittee,” he began. 

“Nothing formal,” warned the 
chairman. “Just explain yourselves. 
And make it good. . . .” He tapped 
his teeth with a pencil. 

An expression of quiet, self-assur- 



ance passed over Whitlowe’s face*. 
The oratorical tones in which he had 
uttered the first few words melted 
away. His voice bespoke sincere sim- 
plicity. “First of all, I must refute 
the fantastic accusations which have 
been hurled against me and my col- 
laborator.” He gestured at Gary, 
slumped in a corner chewing his 
nails. “The assertion that we 
invited the Martians to come to 
Earth is ridiculous; under different 
circumstances I could laugh heartily 
at it. However, this is no time for 
joking. 

“Let me say only that this canard 
is but another example of sensational 
journalism, something from which 
nearly all of you have suffered at one 
time or another.” 

He paused to let the words sink in, 
and, from the expressions on some 
of the faces, saw that his words had 
had the desired effect. Then: “The 
true story, gentlemen of the commit- 
tee, is easily and simply told — even if 
incomplete. You will see why it can- 
not be complete after a moment or 
so. 

“We raised funds through public 
subscription and fitted out our equip- 
ment and apparatus thus; we pro- 
ceeded to the isolated scene of our 
experiments and assembled this 
equipment — suffice to say that, after 
a few minor adjustments, it worked. 

“The Martians were revealed to us 
as huge insect-like creatures. I would 
not call them insects, although per- 
haps an entomologist might find rea- 
son for applying the term. However, 
that is beside the point ; what I mean 
is : in appearance, the Martians more 
closely resemble the insect than any 
other known form of Terrestrial life. 

“From the start, our intercourse 
and communication was on a friendly 
basis. I confess freely that, from the 
nature and general run of our con- 




42 



COSMIC STORIES 



versations, no thought of danger 
entered my head. Whether or not 
that was due, partly, to the influence 
that these creatures had upon us, I 
cannot say. 

“Precisely when their attitude be- 
came menacing is also well-nigh im- 
possible to state. We were being 
shown various sorts of machinery 
the Martians use when the — I'll have 
to use the term ray for want of a 
more adequate one — was run in on 
us. It had a sort of mesmeric effect ; 
I distinctly recall doing things while 
my mind objected and while my 
thoughts warned me to shut off com- 
munication. 

“My belief is that we have been 
made to forget a great deal of what 
we saw and perhaps much of what 
information we actually gave the 
Martians. It w r as only through ac- 
cident — my falling over some ob- 
stacle and ripping out wires in the 
process — that communication was 
shut off. I think that is why we re- 
member what we do; obviously the 
Martians wanted more information 
and, at the time of the breakoff, had 
not yet gotten around to blanking 
out, completely, our impressions of 
them. My opinion is, that, had not 
this accident occurred, we would 
have been forced to destroy our ap- 
paratus and forget the entire inci- 
dent of our actual communication 
with Mars. 

“For, gentlemen, it cannot be de- 
nied that the Martians menace us. 
Before the fortunate accident, we 
had been informed — the answer to a 
direct question in regard to some of 
the information we had given — that 
the Martians intend to migrate, as a 
race, to this planet.” 

He paused to glance at Gary. The 
big man had stopped chewing his 
nails and a look of haunted, self- 
castigation had filled his counte- 



nance. “This would explain,” con- 
tinued Whitlowe, “the atmospheric 
disturbances observed on Mars last 
week.” 

His voice now became grim, as- 
sured. “Gentlemen, there is no time 
to be lost — the word must be pre- 
paredness — lest we be too late! 

“Barricades must be erected ; cities 
protected; offensive equipment set 
up. Earth must be ready to attack 
— and attack well — the instant these 
creatures land upon our planet. They 
informed us, early in the conversa- 
tions, that they had superseded a 
mammalian culture on Mars; I have 
no doubt, now, in what manner this 
supersession took place. It must not 
be repeated here.” 

Wiping his brow, he collapsed in a 
chair beside Gary. 

“It was a bit thick, wasn't it?” 
asked the big man cautiously. 

“Maybe. But we have our own 
necks to think of first. Right?” . . . 

“I guess so — ah!” The Director 
of the Presidium had risen. 

“Are there any questions to be 
put?” 

“Grab your second wind,'' mur- 
mured Gary. “Here comes a cross- 
examination.” 

ARY PAWED LIMPLY over a 
sheaf of newspapers, running 
from the first headline : WHIT- 

LOWE-GARY EXONERATED to 
the latest line, proclaiming: JAP- 
SOVIET WAR OFF— PLANET SE- 
CURITY FIRST. “Did we do this?' 
he muttered dazedly. 

Whitlowe’s grin was satanic. “All 
ours. Now if this were only some 
harmless little hoax, designed to 
bring peace on earth, it would be 
fine. But, unfortunately the Mar- 
tians are good and nasty — and well- 
heeled as far as armament goes, ap- 






THE MARTIANS ARE COMING 



48 



parently. According to the press re- 
ports, of course. 

“They wouldn't have come if they 
hadn't been invited. However, it 
seems to me, that, once we try to 
welsh, it will be war to the knife. 
And I wouldn't be surprised if they 
did have terrific stuff up their 
sleeves." 

Gary tried to picture the Martians 
with sleeves, but soon gave up. He 
scanned another headline : BALKAN 
STATES FORM DEMOCRATIC 
UNION. NO MORE WAR. 

Gary poured himself an enormous 
mug of something, sipped at it, and 
set it down with a mouth of disgust. 
“Remembering what happened the 
last time I got tanked, I don't care 
to repeat the experience," he growled. 

“Okay. It won't be wasted," 
grunted Whitlowe, emptying the 
mug. “Now, how about taking a 
crack at the communications angle — 
fishing for Martians in the depths of 
space . . 

They turned into another room, 
filled with an elaboration of their 
previous apparatus, equipped with a 
scanner device that covered cubic 
miles of space, automatically regis- 
tering and indicating foreign bodies. 
Dully they turned the thing on, and, 
after about a half hour of random 
scouting and reeling in meteors — 
celestial equivalent of rubber boots 
and old bottles — they came on a 
Martian, who smiled in amiable 
greeting. 

Outside, newspaper headlines 
read: WORLD COUNCIL 

FORMED ; CITIES OF EARTH 
PREPARE BLACKOUTS. 

ARY YIPPED agitatedly into 
the 'phone. “They're landing 
in about twelve hours, chief. We 
flashed them a little while ago; 



Whit's still talking to them. He's 
got their flagship." 

Blocks away Major General Wylie 
scratched his head. “Maybe," he 
said, “you can talk them out of 
landing — ?" 

“We'll try, General. I'll talk to 
Whit." 

He hung up, whispered out of the 
corner of his mouth to the little man : 
“Stall them. Wylie says to try to 
stop them from landing." 

Whitlowe, who had been exchang- 
ing politenesses with one of the Mar- 
tians through the lens, wiped his 
brow. “Friend," he called across 
space in a strained voice, “perhaps 
you can disengage yourself long 
enough to permit us to speak with 
your Director." 

“Certainly," replied the Martian. 
“He's been waiting." 

The visage of the Planet Manager 
appeared in the screen. “Ah," he 
said bluffly. “Dashed grateful and 
all — you know?" 

Oh Judas, Whitlowe groaned to 
himself, can't I forget that British 
affectation? But his innate sense of 
humor refused to be budged. “How 
do you do, sir?" he said lamely. 

“Happy we're on our way at last, 
young man. Understand? Had our 
ships for centuries — wouldn't come 
without a contact and invitation 
from you — boorish and all that. Then 
you and your machine — thingumbob 
— you know." 

“It's about that I wanted to talk 
with you. I'd like to know if you've 
brought any — armaments with you." 

“Bah! Of course. Race of sol- 
diers, understand. Military life — 
life blood of our planet. Always or- 
ganized — deuced struggle for exist- 
ence. Might meet wild beasts — dis- 
ease. You think?" 

“ Very unlikely, sir. I'm sure we 
can cope with our planetary dangers 




44 



COSMIC STORIES 



to your satisfaction. Why not light- 
en your ships for an easy landing ?” 

“What's this? Jettison our weap- 
ons? Unheard of, by gad! And the 
suggestion — if I may say so — dashed 
impertinence and all that. Nothing 
personal, of course — present com- 
pany — understand ?” 

“Martian tradition?" asked Whit- 
lowe hastily. 

“Quite, young man. Just so. Mil- 
lions of years. Dashed nuisance now, 
perhaps, but it wouldn't be the 
thing. No show — whippersnappers 
— understand?" 

“Perfectly," said Whitlowe with a 
heavy heart. He tried another tack. 
“Where do you expect to land?" 

“Right here — wilderness." The Di- 
rector produced a globe of Earth, 
held a reading glass of enormous 
power over a tiny section. “You 
know the spot?" 

“Yes," replied Whitlowe, studying 
it. “We call it New Jersey. Good 
place to land, too." To himself he 
prayed they'd fall into the middle of 
a swamp and stay there. “About 
how many ships?" 

“In round numbers, two thousand, 
each containing a thousand Mar- 
tians. We aren't a numerous people, 
but," the Director grinned, “a power- 
ful one." 

“Excuse me," said Whitlowe, 
reaching for the tracer device. “I’ll 
have to sign off now. But we'll keep 
our lens on you till after you land. 
All right?" 

“Perfectly. Carry on!" The Mar- 
tian’s image faded from the screen 
and Whitlowe snapped into action, 
reaching for two telephones at once 
and barking orders to Gary. “Get 
Wylie and have him mobilize all 
available infantry and tanks for con- 
centration outside of Glenwood, New 
Jersey." And then, into one of the 
'phones: “Mayor? I'm Whitlowe of 



the commission. Evacuate Glenwood 
completely within four hours. Ar- 
rangements will be made for you in 
New York City — you'll get confirma- 
tion and full instructions in a few 
minutes." Then, into another: “Ad- 
miral? You'll get the chance, now. 
Move the fleet up the Hudson, aim- 
ing at the swamps to the North East 
of Glenwood, New Jersey. Confirma- 
tion from the White House and full 
instructions will follow. Firing or- 
ders will come only from the Com- 
mission." 

He snatched a phone from Gary. 
“Public Works?" he barked. “This 
is Whitlowe of the Commission. Get 
every inch of barbed wire in North 
America and recruit every volunteer 
male you can get to have it strung 
around Glenwood, New Jersey's 
swamps. Deadline's four hours — 
they'll be here at" — he glanced at his 
watch — “eleven - thirty. Right? 
Right." 

He turned to Gary with haunted 
eyes. “That's that," he said slowly. 
“It isn't a joke any more. I don't 
think I'll ever laugh again. Let's 
get out and give the unhappy town of 
Glenwood, New Jersey a speedy 
double-o." 

P THE HUDSON steamed the 
dawn-grey might of the com- 
bined battle-fleets of North, Central, 
and South America. Japan's was on 
the way, not yet there. They were 
anchoring; guns were swinging 
toward the Jersey side, ready to drop 
shells within the neat rectangle bor- 
dered by several hundred miles of 
twisted and double-taped electrified 
barbed wire. 

"Well," said Gary, hefting the 
audio pack he was strapped into. 

“Okay," said Whitlowe, taking up 
a mike and tuning in. “Do not be 
alarmed," he called to the Martian. 




THE MARTIANS ARE COMING 



45 



“This is a wound-circuit without 
vision — we are on the grounds where 
you decided to land, with a — recep- 
tion committee, and were unable to 
bring along the heavier vision-cir- 
cuit.” 

“You, is it?” the hearty voice of 
the Director replied. “Well, we’ll be 
down in dashed little time — ready to 
start our bally lives over again, 
what?” 

“Yes,” said Whitlowe, gulping. He 
signalled an aide, who came running 
with record tape. 

“No change in your landing 
plans?” asked Whitlowe desperately. 

“None whatsoever. Decide and 
carry through — understand? Down 
in thirteen minutes, every one of the 
two thousand. Excuse me.” 

Whitlowe snapped off the set. “Can 
you hear anything?” he asked the 
aide. 

“No, sir. But we should — two 
thousand big ships, didn’t he say?” 

“They each carry a thousand Mar- 
tians, so they must be big. But we 
ought to hear them — or, if they’re 
silent, we should feel the wind. I 
don’t understand.” 

“Keep your shirt on, Whit,” ad- 
vised Gary. “It’s these skeeters that 
I can’t stand.” He slapped viciously 
at a vampirish insect that settled on 
his wrist for a drink. 

“I’m going to” — began Whitlowe, 
impatiently snapping in the audio 
pack. 

“Hello!” he called. “Are you go- 
ing to land? Where are you?” 

“About twenty miles up,” came the 
reply. 

“We can’t see or hear your ships !” 
stated Whitlowe. 

“You will. We’re ten miles down 
now. Excuse me — I have to — ” the 
voice trailed off. 

“Why,” fretted Whitlowe, “don’t 



they come out into the open? Are 
they going to bomb New York or 
something?” 

“Cut it out!” growled Gary. 
“They’re on the level and they gave 
their word. That’s enough. Any- 
thing else you can set down to news- 
paper hysteria. They should be in 
sight any moment now. Calm down!” 

They were interrupted by roarings 
from the audio. “We’ve landed!” 
shrilled a voice. “We’ve landed!” 
Staring insanely, Whitlowe inspected 
the swamp area. “No!” he stated 
flatly. “Not a sign of two thousand 
ships, each containing one thousand 
Martians. Not a sign of anything.” 

From the audio came a cry of ter- 
ror. “What’s the matter?” yelled 
Gary, snatching the mike. “We’re 
being attacked — by monsters! Huge 
monsters! Send help!” thundered 
the Director. 

“Monsters? Like what?” 

“Six legs; twice our height. Wing3. 
Terrible blood-drinking beak!” 

“They didn’t land on Earth!” 
gasped Whitlowe. 

Gary laughed suddenly. “Yes 
they did!” he roared. “Look there!” 
He turned the beam of his flashlight 
on a little dark clump in the air 
about a hundred feet away. 

“What!” gasped Whitlowe, star- 
ing. 

It was a turbulent knot of insects, 
distinguished by bluish flashes of 
light. Whitlowe lowered the beam 
to the ground below. There were 
arrayed the two thousand ships — tiny 
things, about the size of cigarettes. 

“And that,” said Gary, “is the 
Martian race. All bets are off, and, 
if we wish to save our insignificant 
but witty friends from the mon- 
strous gnats and mosquitoes that are 
beseiging them, we’d better rush out 
some Flit.” 




J#M AND THE MACHINE 

AN EDITORIAL 



With the first story in this first 
issue of our new magazine, we pre- 
sent what we believe to be the great 
underlying theme of our century. 
That is the question of man and the 
machine. We picked “Mecanica” be- 
cause we felt that, besides being a 
powerful and brilliant novel of the 
future, it presented the case fairly 
clearly. 

Who shall be dominant on this 
Earth? Shall man make machinery 
and science serve him, exist to allow 
humanity to increase further its 
triumphs over nature and the cos- 
mos; or shall science’s products over- 
ride man, saddle him with a Frank- 
ensteinian assemblage of machines 
demanding from him lives, homes, 
time, and yes, his very blood? 

We feel that that is the basic fac- 
tor of our Twentieth Century. We 
feel that that is the cause of the 
present war, of the past decades of 
depressions, civil strife and social 
conflict. The struggle for man’s ad- 
justment in a world he has newly 
created — a world of machine toil, a 
world of efficiency, incredibly in- 
creased production, colossal promises 
and colossal threats. 

The struggle to see whether these 
newly created mechanisms, these new 
arts, new sciences — electronics, plas- 
tics, chemistry, invention, power 
transportation, super communication, 
biologic discoveries — to see whether 
they will compel man to alter him- 
self and his society, his customs and 
traditions, to suit them or whether 



they can be forced to serve man 
without exacting some adjustment in 
turn. 

As we see the world today, we see 
on the one hand a world of knowl- 
edge such as has never before been 
achieved by any living organism, on 
the other hand a world of war and 
increasing chaos such as likewise has 
never before existed. Science has 
built super cities and super factories, 
it has also built super bombs and 
super bombers. The machine cares 
nothing for morals, for emotions. It 
judges not, it decides not. It is for 
man to find a way of bringing har- 
mony and the certainty of unimpeded 
future development out of the ma- 
chine world in which our old society 
finds itself. It is that struggle for 
a new balance and a new adjustment 
that occupies the world of man to- 
day and it is the outcome of that 
struggle which is ultimately the sub- 
ject upon which imaginative specula- 
tion must figure. 

Cosmic Stories holds that the en- 
tire cosmos has become, by the in- 
escapable promise of science, the 
rightful heritage of mankind. It in- 
tends to portray this heritage with 
entertainment and with intelligence, 
so that the readers may be both 
pleased and filled with faith that the 
world of the future, the Cosmic 
world, is worth the travail of the 
present. The editors of Cosmic 
Stories extend an invitation to join 
us in the contemplation of cosmic 
adventures to come. 

Donald A. Wollheim, Editor 



46 




CRYSTAL WORLD 



Mu QoJut j£. CUafDHon 

( Author of "Lunar Cun," " Another’ s-Eyog " etc,) 










• •Y'7. 
yy •..« 









B*war» of Uranian t when bearing gifts! 



ETA,” said Martin "Yes. I couldn’t think of a better 
Payne calmly, "belongs time for it. Pluto — no cops — no 

to me now. I thought nothing. I wanted Beta, so I took it. 
you’d like to know.” You forget, doctor, that it’s not 

The cabin of the little ship was as rightfully yours, either. You stole 
silent as a tomb. Nothing moved, it from that Uranian prince — ” 
save the changing panorama- of “Lies! It was given to me — ” 
rugged Pluto on the screens. “I won’t quibble, doctor. I have 

Dr. Henry Osborn looked at his as- Beta now.” He held it before the 
aistant. "You stole Beta?” doctor’s astonished eyes. It glit- 




47 




48 



COSMIC STORIES 



tered brightly. “One of the rarest 
of outer-terrestrial jewels,” mur- 
mured Martin Payne. 

Osborn yelled insanely and leaped 
at his assistant. Payne dodged, and 
the scientist sprawled over the ship’s 
control board- There was a sudden 
lurch. 

The cruiser plunged toward the ir- 
regular crust of Pluto, spinning. . . . 

T HE SNOW whirled in crystalline 
eddies about the old observa- 
tory’s windows. Bleak, silent, the 
sharply-etched Plutonian landscape 
stretched away, its soft, white 
blanket lifting to meet the cold night 
sky. The crystals stood here and 
there, rising like pyramids from the 
wintry terrain. 

Lance Griffith turned from the 
scene and paced the floor. His foot- 
steps re-echoed across the huge ob- 
servatory. 

Gray-haired Lance Grifith, Sr. 
lifted his head from the eye-piece of 
the one-hundred and fifty inch re- 
flector. “You’re getting restless, 
Lance.” 

“Yes, I know. The place gives me 
the creeps. We’re all alone here, 
Dad. The only other sign of civiliza- 
tion on Pluto is at Muir, and that’s 
two hundred miles away. I don’t 
like the silence — it’s nerve-racking.” 

“I understand. I was like that too, 
when the Commission first stationed 
me here twenty years ago. But I 
overcame it. Since then, I’ve found 
Pluto quite enjoyable.” 

Lance stopped pacing and looked 
out the window again. “But if I had 
a little action — something to do be- 
sides being cooped up in the observa- 
tory — ” 

His father chuckled softly. 
“There’ll be action, Lance. Pluto 
isn’t always like this. And besides, 



the Commission is looking upon you 
as my successor.” 

“I know,” said Lance, forcing a 
laugh. “I’ll have to like the place, 
won’t I?” 

Lance Griffith, Sr. nodded. “Sleep 
is what you need. I could use a lit- 
tle myself.” 

He made an effort to rise from 
the portable chair. All of a sudden 
he dropped back, a quick expression 
of pain crossing his face. 

“Dad — ” young Lance started for- 
ward. 

His father recovered, waving him 
away. “Nothing Lance. I'm a little 
weak, I guess.” 

“Overwork,” said Lance. “You’d 
better let me take over the telescope 
duties, for a few days.” He helped 
his father up from the chair and 
guided him into the living quarters 
at the back of the observatory. 

The old man reclined on a couch. 
“Remember, Lance — awaken me if 
anything happens.” 

Lance laughed outright. “Noth- 
ing’s happened on this world for 
years, Dad. Just go to sleep and for- 
get all about it.” 

“Forget it? When I’ve lived here 
twenty years? Why, Lance — all 
right — I’ll sleep.” 

A YEAR. One whole year. That 
was how long Lance had been 
on Pluto. He knew he would become 
accustomed to the bleak little world 
sooner or later, though at times he 
felt the loneliness would be madden- 
ing. It might not be as bad as he 
thought. Lance, Sr., had lived there 
for two decades. So could Lance, Jr. 

Funny things, those crystals. 
Lance moved to the window and 
looked out at the landscape again. 
The crystals were there, vast, rugged 
chunks of iciness that protruded 



CRYSTAL WORLD 



49 



from the sea of snow. They served 
as Pluto’s landmark. 

The observatory was a link to 
outer-galactic regions. It had been 
erected some twenty years ago by an 
interplanetary corporation of earth, 
since then being a determining fac- 
tor in astronomical progress. Lance 
Griffith, Sr., had been its guardian. 
A year ago young Lance had been 
sent to the outpost to act as his 
father’s assistant. In case the elder 
Griffith chose to retire, the Commis- 
sion would appoint Lance his suc- 
cessor. 

As Lance idly watched the scene 
outside, he detected a movement 
among the stars. There was a spark, 
a feeble red glow, moving slowly 
across the sky, dropping toward the 
distant horizon. A space ship! 

It fell farther, crossed Neptune’s 
face and began to increase in size. 
Its downward movement slowed as it 
swept about in circles and leveled 
over the Plutonian landscape a few 
miles away. Lance caught a glint of 
metal, silvery metal that constituted 
the hull-plates of earth ships. 

The spark took a sudden dip, wob- 
bled a moment, and streaked down- 
ward swiftly. A minute later it dis- 
appeared, lost in the vast expanse of 
snow. 

Lance searched a moment in a 
cabinet and secured a pair of binocu- 
lars. They aided him somewhat, 
bringing to view the tip of the dis- 
abled ship. Lance watched for a 
few minutes, but saw no signs of 
life. 

Someone had chanced the regions 
beyond Neptune, and had failed. 
Someone had made an unsuccessful 
attempt at a landing on Pluto. 
Grimly, Lance lowered the binocu- 
lars. 

He could walk that far — it would 
take some time, but he could make 



it, providing a storm didn’t rise. But 
the return trip — what if the ship was 
beyond repair? He’d have to walk 
back then, and if anyone was in- 
j ured — 

“Dad!” called Lance, forgetting 
for the moment that his father might 
be asleep. A bit excited, he hastened 
across the observatory and opened 
the door to the living quarters. He 
stopped still. Something stabbed at 
his heart. He ran to the couch, but 
before he reached it he knew that his 
father was no longer breathing. . . . 

T HE Plutonian night was cold and 
blue. But Lance didn’t feel the 
cold as he stepped from the observa- 
tory airlock in his bulbous space-suit. 
He was warm, though he knew that 
the stinging bite of the planet’s at- 
mosphere would penetrate the metal 
covering before long. 

He looked back after he had de- 
scended the little knoll on which the 
observatory rested. The building 
stood massive and silent. For the 
first time since its erection it was 
uninhabited. 

Lance turned and struck out 
across the snow. The crust was 
hard and did not yield under foot. 
But it was slippery, and Lance found 
it difficult to keep his balance. 

He set his mark at a point directly 
between two crystals, where he had 
last seen the fallen space ship. He 
plodded on, his head lowered. 

For two hours he walked. The two 
crystals loomed ahead. They were 
gigantic things — like great icebergs. 
The starlight made them sparkle. 

Lance passed between them and 
traversed the crest of a long hill. 
Ahead, approximately a half-mile 
away, a dark object could be seen. 
After a brief rest, Lance moved on 
toward it. 

He sighted something that he 



50 



COSMIC STORIES 



hadn't noticed before. The dark ob- 
ject was the ship, all right, but it 
had landed directly in front of a 
rugged hundred-foot cliff. Not just 
an ordinary cliff. This one con- 
sisted of nothing but snow, loosely 
packed snow that could be jarred 
free by the slightest vibration. For 
example — the falling of the space 
ship. Lance knew what that meant. 
He had witnessed such things before 
on Pluto. And an avalanche on this 
little world was something to think 
about. 

Lance ran forward, despite the 
bulky suit. Presently, he drew up 
before the ship's airlock. 

The vessel had plowed its way 
through the snow for some distance, 
and rested at a slight angle, the nose 
obscured by a huge drift. Fifty 
yards beyond towered the cliff. 

Before Lance could advance any 
further, the circular airlock snapped 
open and a bulky figure leaped to 
the snow. Quickly Lance turned on 
his intermittent phones. 

The figure bounded toward him, 
and through the helmet's face-plate 
Lance saw a color-drained, haggard 
face. A heavy voice said: “Better 

run — the cliff looks weak." 

“Anyone else?" asked Lance. 

“Just a dead man." The figure 
passed him. Lance took a last glance 
at the little ship, and followed. 

They stopped to rest a few hun- 
dred yards beyond. 

“You're young Grifith. Right? 
Your father's guardian of the ob- 
servatory." 

Lance nodded. “I'm guardian 
now . . . temporarily anyway. My 
father was stricken with heart at- 
tack five hours ago. They're com- 
ing for him now — from Muir." 

The two stood in silence. 

“Everything," said the stranger, 
“happens at once on Pluto. I'm sorry 



about Griffith. Osborn's my name — 
Dr. Henry Osborn." 

“I've heard of you. The other fel- 
low ?" 

“Martin Payne, my aid. He was 
the cause of the accident. Stole a 
jewel from me. We fought and the 
ship went out of control. The crash 
killed him." 

“You're not hurt?" 

“No." 

“Good. You've a long walk ahead 
of you, and from the looks of things, 
a storm's brewing. On Pluto that's 
bad news." 

They hadn't walked ten paces be- 
fore a cataclysmic tearing rent their 
earphones. They turned and the 
cliff seemed to explode before their 
eyes. It thundered for a moment, 
smothered the ship and raised a 
thin cloud of glittering snow. The 
noise gradually died away in the 
crisp atmosphere. 

T HE WIND was rising steadily. 

Lance had seen windstorms on 
Pluto before. He knew what they 
were like. And it was getting cold 
— his fingers were numb. He slapped 
his hands against the metal legs of 
his space-suit. 

Osborn plodded along behind him, 
stepping in the tracks he made. They 
said very little, only remarking about 
the deep snow and the sharpness of 
the biting cold. 

The hill lay far behind them. 
Ahead, the two crystals stood hugely 
to either side. 

Snow flurries whipped about them 
as the wind rose to a dull moan. The 
sky became dark ; a few stars 
peeped through the snowy veil. The 
wind struck them from an angle, 
making it difficult to maintain bal- 
ance where the snow was crust-like. 

The walking became more and 
more unsteady as the snow swirled 



CRYSTAL WORLD 



51 



about them and the cold numbed 
their limbs. They moved on, slowly, 
bent forward against the drive of the 
wind. 

Then the gale increased, suddenly. 
A screaming, relentless torrent of 
wind struck them with intense 
ferocity and penetrating cold. It 
stopped them in their tracks, for- 
bade them to move. 

“Stuck!” said Osborn. “Now 
what?” 

“We'll have to make for a crystal,” 
said Lance. “It's out of our way, but 
it's shelter. We'll never make it if 
we keep on.” 

They turned off to the right. The 
wind was partly at their backs now, 
so walking was easier. Vision was 
cut off beyond ten yards. The tracks 
they made in the snow were filled 
again almost instantly. 

The vast hulk of the crystal 
loomed out of the storm after they 
had travelled a few hundred yards. 
They were still a good distance from 
it, however, due to the illusion pro- 
vided by its colossal size. 

They stumbled along through the 
mounting drifts. Sheets of snow 
dashed awjay at their metal figures, 
swept upward from the wind-eroded 
ground, streaked away in mad whirl- 
pools. The sky turned black. 

When Lance looked up once more, 
the immense crystal towered directly 
before them. They struggled on for 
another minute, falling exhaustedly 
on the leeward side of the crystal. 
Overhead, the arching mountain of 
iciness protected them from the gale. 

Presently Lance got to his feet. 
“There's one thing we can do,” he 
said. “Give me your heat-gun.” 

Osborn complied. Lance lifted his 
own gun, aimed both at the crystal 
wall, and pressed the triggers. Amid 
a loud hissing, two fiery beams 
lashed forth. A vast portion of the 



wall melted away. Lance fired 
away. The hole increased. 

A third blast left a huge crevice 
in the wall extending some five yards 
into the base of the crystal. Lance 
and Osborn entered. 

The terrific heat of the guns left 
a lingering warmth in the hole. It 
lasted for only a few minutes, but it 
was sufficient to remove some of the 
numbness in their limbs. 

Outside, the incessant wind tore 
furiously around the crystal, its 
moan reaching a fierce, ear-splitting 
din. Blankets of snow swept about 
in angry gusts. 

They sat there for several min- 
utes, resting. Then Osborn asked: 
“The crystals — what are they made 
of?” 

“Could be a lot of things,” an- 
swered Lance. “No one ever bothered 
to analyze the stuff.” 

“It looks, and feels like glass,” ob- 
served Osborn. 

“Possible. Yet it melts — like ice. 
Its commercial value has never been 
determined.” After a moment, “You 
mentioned this Payne fellow — stole a 
jewel, you say?” 

The other nodded. “Payne turned 
crook when we reached Pluto. I had 
obtained the jewel on Uranus — he 
robbed me as we entered Pluto's at- 
mosphere. I managed to save my- 
self from the crash. Payne was 
crushed.” 

He lifted a metal hand and exposed 
the palm. Lance saw a tiny leather 
packet — it had been clutched by Os- 
born's hand all this time. 

Osborn removed the jewel care- 
fully, held it before Lance’s face- 
plate. 

“Beta,” said Osborn. 

Lance studied it closely. “Strange,” 
he murmured. 

“Why?” Osborn looked at him 
suspiciously. 




52 



COSMIC STORIES 



“I don’t know. Haven’t seen any- 
thing like it before.” 

Osborn put it back in the packet, 
closed his fingers about it tightly. 

"The storm’s letting up,” he said. 
"We can start out again.” 

"We’ll have to. The gap I made 
is closing in on us.” 

They crawled through the narrow- 
ing hole into the open again. It was 
easier to walk now. The wind was 
not so strong and the snow flurries 
were no longer piling up in huge 
drifts. 

They made their way around the 
crystal and set out in the general di- 
rection of the observatory. The snow 
was quite deep, and they sank to 
their knees with each step. But it 
wasn’t the snow that bothered them. 
It was the cold — the sharp, stinging 
cold. The numbness set in once more. 

Gradually, the sky cleared. The 
wind changed, suddenly, and pressed 
on their backs. 

Vision returned. The darkness 
that had veiled the sky drifted away 
to unfold a swarm of icy stars. The 
cold increased as the wind receded 
somewhat. 

Ahead, the observatory was a tiny 
knob in the distance, silhouetted 
against the night sky along with a 
row of rugged crystals. 

"It’s getting colder,” remarked 
Lance, "like it does after every storm 
here. The wind blows for two or 
three earth days following. And it’s 
the coldest wind in the system.” 

They came across the trail Lance 
had made on his v/ay to the ship. 
It was barely visible — a path of light 
footprints leading toward the ob- 
servatory. 

Soon they emerged from the soft 
snow and came upon the hard, crust- 
like surface. They walked faster. 

Lance’s hands stung painfully. His 
body was numb, his legs stiff and 



heavy-like. Osborn trailed in silence, 
his arms folded, clutching Beta to 
him. 

A sudden gust of wind, sharp, bit- 
ing wind, sent them tumbling across 
the hard snow. Lance stuck out his 
hand and caught Osborn by the arm. 
They stopped skidding, lay there in 
the snow as the wind howled over 
their heads. 

Osborn pulled away and got to his 
feet, glancing at his hand self-as- 
suringly. 

EAR exhaustion, they contin- 
ued. The observatory was a 
little closer now, though Lance 
doubted the possibility of reaching it 
in such hellish weather. He prayed 
that the ship from Muir had already 
arrived. It meant a chance of rescue 
in case they fell before they reached 
the observatorv. 

The stars glittered and danced. 
The old observatory became a weav- 
ing patch of black on the horizon. 

Lance moved along doggedly, the 
wind’s icy needles penetrating his 
space-suit, chilling his legs until he 
felt he could scarcely move them. 

Osborn went down suddenly. Lance 
walked back to him, lifted him erect. 

"We’ll never make it, Griffith.” 

"You’re crazy,” muttered Lance. 
"We’re almost there. No time to give 
up.” 

He turned abruptly and walked on. 
He didn’t need to look back to see if 
Osborn was following him. 

Minutes dragged by. The observa- 
tory swam before Lance’s eyes. He 
was certain now — there wasn’t a 
chance in the world. His strength 
was gone and he’d soon fall just as 
Osborn had. A couple of times, and 
he wouldn’t get up again. 

He struggled farther, bent against 
the howling wind. He would have 
sworn an hour passed. He looked up 





CRYSTAL WORLD 



53 



finally, and the observatory seemed 
within his arm’s reach. Enlightened, 
he continued. 

He heard a cry from Osborn. He 
turned and the wind swept him from 
his feet, sent him rolling back. He 
clawed at the snow, stopping beside 
Osborn. The fellow was down for 
good this time — Lance saw that in 
just a glance. 

There was nothing he could do but 
carry Osborn. This he tried, tramp- 
ing only a few yards before the wind 
switched again and knocked him to 
the ground. He was asleep in a mat- 
ter of seconds. 

*<WWE’S coming around.” The 

-»-■* blackness before Lance’s 
eyes was lifting. 

“He’ll be okay. The dark fellow’s 
still out.” 

Lance opened his eyes. He saw a 
ship’s cabin, felt the ship’s swift up- 
ward motion. He turned and saw 
Blane and Foster, the two he had 
summoned from Muir. Instantly he 
remembered. 

“Foster was getting impatient,” 
said Blane. “Didn’t like waiting 
around the observatory. Besides, 
you were past due, so we looked into 
things.” 

Lance tried to say something, but 
fell back. He rested, then managed 
to reply: “Thanks . , , in the nick 

of time. How about . . , other fel- 
low?” 

“Doing all right. Can’t pry that 
thing loose from his hand. What is 
it?” 

“Jewel. Don’t bother . . . not worth 
. . . a nickel. Everything else okay?” 

“Sure,” said Blane. “We brought a 
little good news too.” 

Lance turned his head and looked 
at Blane’s red face. “Yeah?” 

“They’re going to move the tele- 
scope to Muir next week. The obser- 



vatory there is completed, you 
know.” 

Lance looked startled. “No — I 

didn’t know.” 

“Old Lance knew,” said Foster. 
“Guess he wanted to surprise you. 
Anyway, you won’t be out here alone 
— not another minute.” 

Lance was too shocked to say any- 
thing. 

Foster went on. “What’s more — 
you won’t be working alone in Muir. 
The Commission is sending more men 
in an effort to further your astro- 
nomical exploration. They’ll be ar- 
riving anytime now. Among them 
is Dr. Osborn — famous earth astrono- 
mer, they say — ” 

Lance sat up quickly. “Osborn, 
did you say? This is him — he was 
aboard the ship that crashed — ” 

Blane chuckled. “You crazy? We’ve 
seen his picture. This fellow’s not 
Osborn.” 

Lance got up from the cot and 
crossed to where the stranger was 
lying. Ignoring the fatigue and cold 
that was within him, he bent for- 
ward and studied the dark, immobile 
face. 

“ — not Osborn,” muttered Blane. 

“Then who is he?” 

“Search me. Maybe — ” 

The dark fellow’s eyelids fluttered. 
The hand that held the tiny jewel 
clasped and unclasped mechanically. 

Lance stepped back as the other 
opened his eyes and looked about the 
cabin. 

“A mere case,” said Lance, “of 
mistaken identity. It’s Payne — Mar- 
tin Payne. He’s really Osborn’s as- 
sistant. Osborn is out in the wrecked 
ship, dead. Payne was posing as 
him.” 

“And all for what?” asked Blane. 

“The jewel, I suppose. That right, 
Payne?” 



54 



COSMIC STORIES 



The dark eyebrows knotted. 
“Clever, Mr. Griffith." The hand 
closed over Beta. 

“The jewel's no good," said Lance. 
“You robbed Osborn of something 
that wasn't worth half the trouble 
it caused you. I noticed that when 
you showed Beta to me in the crys- 
tal. It's funny you didn't notice 
it yourself." 

“You're out of your mind," 
snapped Payne, leaping erect. “Os- 
born got this on Uranus, and it's 
genuine. ... I know it is!" 

“Then you admit the crime? Don't 
bother, Payne. It's three against 
one. Besides, I'd like to have you 
know about Beta. It's become a habit 
of outer-terrestrial rulers to make 
priceless-looking stones out of a very 
common material. Strange how 
earthmen fall for it, and pay eye-fill- 
ing sums for a little something that 
can be had by the ton if one looks 
far enough for it. I mean the crys- 



tals you see all over Pluto. They've 
supplied the crooks of Uranus and 
Neptune for a number of years. 
They've been the origin of thousands 
of little Betas just like the one you're 
holding. It has a speck of value, 
Payne — it's no more than a chunk of 
some Plutonian crystal, and Pluto is 
covered with the things — " 

“Catch him!" yelled Blane. 

But thev were too late. Martin 
«/ 

Payne had hurled himself against the 
ship's airlock. There was a loud hiss 
and the lock snapped open, snapped 
shut. Payne grinned evilly through 
the glass portal. He waved his 
clenched fist, the one that held Beta, 
then turned and thrust open the 
outer lock. 

He fell outward, silhouetted 
against rugged Pluto for a moment, 
and dropped. 

When they dug him out of the 
snow' a day later, he was still clutch- 
ing the valueless little jewel. 



GRA VITY REVERSED 



Theories regarding flight through 
space usually classify possible means 
of leaving the Earth's pull in fo~r 
categories: Rockets, Projectiles, Cen- 
trifuges, and Gravity Reversers. The 
first has become the accepted prob- 
able means of such flight — it is the 
only one we are familiar with that 
solves all the questions. Both pro- 
jectile and centrifuge propulsion, 
while theoretically possible, possess 
too many obstacles to practical use. 
The last-named means, the use of a 
reversal of gravity or of a gravity 
screen, remained purely hypothetical 
since science had never any indica- 
tion that any such thing was within 
the bounds of Nature. 

Only very recently, in the past few 
months, has there been found a phe- 
nomenon which may give the first 
practical clue to the existence of a 



means of reversing gravity. During 
experiments in the freezing of 
helium towards absolute zero (a 
state of absolute heatlessness where 
matter reaches complete quiescence) 
it was discovered that at about two 
degrees above absolute zero, liquid 
helium had a tendency to flow up- 
wards in a vacuum! 

The tiny quantities of liquid helium 
moved upwards in the vacuum flask 
at the rate of about six or seven 
inches a second trying to force their 
way out of the top. Scientists point 
out that this may not necessarily 
indicate a tendency to oppose grav- 
ity, there may be factors involved 
which would explain it more easily. 
But meanwhile an anti-gravity flow 
remains one of the explanations of 
this phenomenon and if it is proven 
true we may be on the road to 
coloasal things ! 



THE MAX FROM THE FtJTVRE 

Mtf jb<nuUd /l. ItJolUteim 

(Author of "Planet of Illusion,” "Bone*” etc.) 

The midget put on a very good performance 



H E WAS obviously a dwarf 
but not exactly the kind 
that circuses and midget 
shows want. You see, he wasn’t a 
perfect miniature because his head 
was as large as a full grown man’s 
even though the whole of him only 
came up to our belt lines. There he 
stood by the door of the subway ex- 
press looking more or less disinter- 
estedly through the glass pane of the 
window at the local stations speed- 
ing by. 

Jack and I were hanging on to a 
stanchion because the car was 
crowded. I was the first to notice 
him because I was facing Jack and 
the dwarf was just behind him. Jack 
glanced around when I nudged and 
took him in without being rude 
enough to stare too blatantly. 

Having just come from a meeting 
of our science-fiction club out in 
Brooklyn, we still had all sorts of 
fantastic ideas on our minds. A sci- 
ence-fiction club, in case you’re not 
familiar with one, is a group of 
young fellows who read the science- 
fiction magazines regularly, some- 
times collect them, and like to meet 
once in a while to talk over the vari- 
ous ideas presented in them — like 
interplanetary flight, Martians, time 
travel and so forth. 

It was not unnatural therefore that 
upon seeing this little man we should 
start to invent fantastic explana- 
tions for him. Of course we didn’t 
believe them but it tickled us to whis- 
per to each other that maybe the 
little man with the big head was a 



Martian going about the city dressed 
in business clothes and hoping people 
would mistake him for a circus 
dwarf or something. Jack said that 
he couldn’t be a Martian because 
everyone knew that Martians were 
at least eight feet tall and had barrel 
chests. So then I suggested that he 
might be a man from the future be- 
cause everybody knows that men 
from the future will have very small 
bodies and big heads to hold their 
big brains in. 

“As a matter of fact,” I whispered 
to Jack as we were passing De Kalb 
Avenue, “he could play the part to 
perfection. His face is sort of odd. 
His nose is flat and pudgy, his fea- 
tures small, and his brow does seem 
to bulge over his eyes.” 

' Jack stole another look at him and 
nodded but added, “But he has hair 
on his head and in the future every- 
one will be bald.” 

That was true of course but then 
we were only making believe. The 
dwarf had a fair crop of wiry black 
hair even though there was a little 
bald spot towards the back. I no- 
ticed too that his skin was sort of 
darker than the average and won- 
dered if he could have a touch of 
Negroid in him. 

I think that we both got the bright 
idea at the same time. There was a 
big national convention of science- 
fiction readers coming off in two 
weeks in New York. Why not en- 
gage the little man, if he was avail- 
able of course, and have him come to 
the convention dressed as a man from 



55 




56 



COSMIC STORIES 



the future? We could fool a lot of 
people, get some newspaper publicity 
from it, and it would help out the en- 
tertainment committee no end. We 
fellows who lived in New York nat- 
urally had the organization of the 
convention on our hands and we had 
to keep thinking about what could 
be done. 

It was a great idea ; we could have 
odd clothes made for the dwarf to 
wear, and write him a script in 
the best science-fiction style to read. 

Jack was always the more forward 
of the two of us and he approached 
the dwarf with a casual comment. I 
was a bit leery of that part for these 
midgets are often inclined to be very 
touchy about their heights and to 
take offense. However the dwarf 
took it in good spirit and proved to 
be quite amiable. 

It turned out that he was not a 
circus actor at all. He didn’t work 
for a living because he would have 
had difficulty getting jobs outside of 
freak shows, and he didn’t have to 
work, fortunately, because he had a 
small inherited income. Or so he 
said. 

* 

He had a sense of humor anyway 
and saw the fun in the idea of at- 
tending the convention as a man 
from the future. He waved aside 
queries as to how much we would 
have to pay him as he said he would 
enjoy the stunt himself. 

We met him a couple of times dur- 
ing the next two weeks at my place. 
He preferred that we didn’t visit him 
and we didn’t. He turned out to be 
quite an interesting conversationalist 
and had a number of odd ideas on 
things. We fitted him up with an 
outlandish costume for the part 
which we modeled from some of the 
illustrations from fantastic stories. A 
vividly colored shirt with a bright 
purple cape dropping from the 



shoulders, green shorts, yellow leg- 
gings. He supplied an oddly designed 
pair of slippers himself and we 
topped it off with a wide metal 
studded belt. 

T HE CONVENTION met in a hall 
in Manhattan and was quite a 
success. About three hundred peo- 
ple from California, Texas and other 
far away states had traveled all the 
way across the continent to attend. 

The regular business of the con- 
vention had been disposed of and we 
introduced the star visitor, our “Man 
from the Future.” 

The dwarf played his part to per- 
fection. He strode on to the dais 
with perfect ease and looked great. 
His normal sized head really looked 
quite gigantic in comparison with 
his stunted body and we had empha- 
sized his brow with a metallic hel- 
met. He had clipped a number of 
things to the trick belt, a couple of 
dials, a leather pouch, and a couple 
of tubes which I supposed were 
chrome flashlights he might have 
bought in the five-and-ten. 

He started his little talk nicely. 
The audience was quite spell-bound, 
he really looked the part you know. 
And with that helmet, you couldn’t 
see that he wasn’t bald as a real man 
from the future ought to be. 

Anyway he was getting along 
famously, following our script close- 
ly, telling how he had come back 
from the future in his time machine 
to investigate the Twentieth Century 
for the historians of his day. 

Then one of those nuisances from 
the science-fiction club that meets in 
the Bronx recovered his breath and 
started to heckle. Just for explana- 
tion, I might say that our clubs are 
sort of rivals, friendly-like, but 
rivals. They had a movie they made 




THE MAN FROM THE FUTURE 



57 



themselves and were going to project You couldn’t see it very well in the 
and they were afraid our Man from afternoon light and it would have 
the Future would prove to be the been more effective if there had been 
more memorable attraction. a green or red filter in it, but it 

Anyway this chap over in the seemed to have done the trick. 

Bronx section near the back of the The heckler shut up and our Man 



hall kept calling out annoying ques- 
tions and trying to confuse our 
dwarf. I could see that the dwarf 
wasn’t taking this very well for he 
was getting a bit mixed up and was 
looking quite angrily in the direction 
of his persecutor. 

Finally the heckler called out 
something about why don't you go 
back to Coney Island where you 
came from? and that got the speaker 
rattled once too often. 

The dwarf stopped, stared at the 
heckler from his raised dais, dra- 
matically unhooked one of his flash- 
lights and pointed it at the source 
of annoyance. It was nicely acted 
and I was tickled he had such pres- 
ence of mind. The dwarf pressed the 
switch and an ordinary beam of 
white light, narrowed down to almost 
a pencil beam shone on the speaker. 



from the Future finished his little 
talk. 

The rest of the convention went off 
without any trouble. The dwarf left 
shortly after he had finished and 
didn’t want to stay to see the movies. 
After the film we all left the hall for 
a buffet supper downstairs in the 
building and we didn’t have occasion 
to go back. 

That’s all I know about the affair. 
We had a good time, everybody 
thought that the Man from the Fu- 
ture had put on a good act and had 
been very clever in using that ray 
trick to shut up the heckler. That is 
everyone thought so but the police 
when the caretaker discovered the 
body after the week-end lying in the 
hall crusted with green and blue 
spots. The police are still looking for 
that dwarf and that trick flashlight. 



Have Yon Met Hugo 
The Bandnr Yet f 

If not, you haven't read 

THIRTEEN O’CLOCK 

by 

Cecil Corwin 

One of the twelve great yarn* 
featured in the current issue of 

STIRRING 

SCIENCE 

STORIES 

The new science-fiction and fantasy 
magazine now on all newsstands. 







H® had the machine that could bring the Earth unfold prosperity, but how could he 
compel the Syndicate to give way without destroying the world? 



CHAPTER I joke, Dr. Train. World Research 

Syndicate has little interest in in- 
JOR THIS DEVICE,” de- dependents— but from a person of 
dared the haggard young your ability, perhaps we'll examine it. 
man, “and all rights, [ What is it you have there? Per- 
want thirty per cent of the World haps a payment of a few thousands 
Research Syndicate voting stock.” can be arranged.” 

The big man grinned. “Your little “Don’t laugh just yet. Look over 

53 









RETURN FROM M-15 



59 



these plans — you'll see what I mean/' 
The engineer took up the sheaf 
of cap with a smile and unrolled one 
of the sheets. His brow wrinkled, 
the smile became a frown. He opened 
other sheets and stared at them. 

"Excuse me/’ he said, looking up. 
"I think I see what you are driving 
at, but I can't deliver an opinion on 
this sort of thing. I’m an expert in 
my own line and I know di-electrica 
as well as most, but this stuff is 
over my head. I shall endorse your 
work and refer it to the Board of 
Technology. And I think you’ll scare 
hell out of them.” 

Train laughed freely. "I’ll do my 
best, Hans. And have you any idea 
of what this device will do?” 

Vogel looked frightened. “I almost 
hope I’m wrong,” he said. "Does 

it ” he whispered in Train’s ear. 

"Right the first time. It does and 
it will. And if the Syndicate doesn’t 
meet my demands, then I can set it 
up myself and go into business.” 
The other man looked strangely 
sober. "Young Dr. Train,” he started, 
"I am strangely inclined to advise 
you like a father.” 

"Go ahead, Hans,” replied Train 
cheerfully. 

"Very well. I tell you, then, to 
moderate your request, or you will 
find yourself in the gravest of dif- 
ficulties.” He looked about the room 
apprehensively. "This is not a threat ; 
it is merely advice. I am almost con- 
vinced that you should scrap your 
machine or technique, or whatever 
it is, and forget about it as com- 
pletely as you can.” 

Train rose angrily. "Thank you. 
Vogel, you must be the truest and 
( most faithful slave the Syndicate 
has; you and your advice can both 
go to the same place. I’m leaving 
the plans with you; they are not 
complete, of course. I hold all the 



key details. Send them into your 
board and have them communicate 
with me. Good day.” 

A NN WAS primping herself be- 
fore a mirror. "Barney,” she 
warned coldly as she saw Train 
sneaking up behind her. 

"I just wanted to straighten my 
tie,” he said meekly. 

"A likely story!” 

"It isn’t every day one calls on 
Jehovah,” he said. "I think Mr. T. J. 
Hartly would be disgruntled if I ap- 
peared with a crooked tie to receive 
a check for a million dollars.” 

"For a check that big you should 
be willing to go in stark naked,” she 
said reflectively. 

"Possibly. Where shall we have 
dinner? I want to flash the check 
in a head-waitress’ face. They’ve 
been sneering at me all my life and 
I think it’s time I got even.” 

"You’ll do no such thing!” she 
retorted indignantly. "The moment 
we get that check, we head for the 
city clerk and get married. The 
money may be in your name, but 
I’m not going to be short-changed.” 
"Come on,” he said, taking her arm 
and starting for the door. "It is sort 
of wonderful, isn’t it? I’m so damned 
nervous I might burst into tears.” 
Suddenly sober, she looked at him. 
"Yes.” 

"Husband and wife,” he mused. 
"Free from care and poverty; we 
can just love each other and buy 
all the crazy, expensive machines we 
want. We can get acid stains on 
our hands whenever we feel like it, 
and have explosions three times a 
day. It’s like a dream.” 

She kissed him abruptly. "On our 
way.” They hopped into a taxi, and 
after a few moments of frenzied driv- 
ing, pulled up at the entrance to the 
Syndicate Building. 



60 



COSMIC STORIES 



Train paid the driver, gave him an 
enormous tip. On the elevator, Ann 
kicked him sharply in the shin. 

“What was that for?” he inquired 
injuredly. 

“For wasting our money, dear.” 

“Then this,” he replied, kicking 
her back, “is for interfering in the 
distribution of our funds.” 

The door opened and they hobbled 
out of the car. 

“Mr. Train and Miss Riley?” asked 
a polished young man, looking curi- 
ously at them. “Please come this 
way.” He opened a hugely carven oak 
door and ushered them through. Then 
the door closed solidly behind them. 

The room was huge and impres- 
sively bare. At the far end, beneath 
clouded windows, was a large desk. 
Impressively the man behind it rose. 
“I am Mr. Hartly,” he said. 

“Riley and Train,” replied Barna- 
bas Train nervously. “We are pleased 
to meet you.” 

Hartly smiled acknowledgement 
and studied a sheaf of papers. “As 
the arrangement now stands, we 
have investigated your device — 

tagged Independent Fourteen and 

are prepared to take over all rights 
and techniques in exchange for a 
stated payment. This payment will 
be an advance of one million dollars 
to be delivered in toto now, in re- 
turn for the final details of Inde- 
pendent Fourteen which are in your 
possession, to be followed by a trans- 
fer of thirty per cent of the voting 
stock of Research Syndicate.” 

“Correct,” said Train. “I’m pre- 
pared to deliver if you are.” 

Hartly — who was really a very 
small man, Ann noted with some 
surprise — smiled again. “As director 
of the Syndicate I have decided to 
request a slight moderation in your 
demands.” 



“To what?” snapped Train, his 
eyes hardening. 

“It has been thought that an am- 
ple payment would be arranged on 
& basis of the million advance and — 
say — one tenth of one per cent of 
non-voting stock.” 

Train laughed shortly. “Don’t joke 
with me. I know the spot you’re 
in. I’m holding out for a strong 
minority for one reason only — I want 
to put in my vote when I have to 
and keep you financiers from taking 
young technicians from the schools 
and making them your slaves as 
you’ve always done. And if you don’t 
give in — Independent Fourteen goes 
into operation under my direction, 
and at my discretion. And you know 
what that machine can do to your 
trust!” 

Hartly tapped his teeth with a 
pencil. “As well as you, certainly.” 
A moment of silence. “Then if we 
can reach no agreement you had bet- 
ter leave.” 

“Come on, honey,” said Train, tak- 
ing Ann’s arm. “We have work to 
do.” Turning their backs on the little 
financier, they walked to the huge 
door and pulled it open. Before them 
was a line of police. “Go back,” said 
an officer quietly. 

“What the hell is this?” demanded 
Train as they were hustled back to 
Hartly’s desk, surrounded by an es- 
cort with drawn guns. The officer 
ignored him and addressed the man 
behind the desk. “We heard there 
was trouble in here, sir. Are these 
the ones?” 

“Yes. The man has attempted 
blackmail, theft, sabotage, and as- 
sault. The woman is of no impor- 
tance.” 

“He’s lying!” exploded Train. “I’m 
Dr. Train and this snake’s after steal- 
ing an invention he won’t meet my 
terms on.” 




RETURN FROM M-1B 



61 



“You’d better search him/’ said 
Hartly quietly. “I believe he has on 
him documents stolen from our files. 
They will be marked as specifications 
for Independent Fourteen.” 

Suddenly Train stopped struggling. 
“You’re wrong on that point,” he said 
coldly. “All the missing details are 
in my head; you’ll never get them 
from me.” 

“It doesn’t really matter, Doctor,” 
returned Hartly negligently. “My en- 
gineers can reconstruct them from 
what we have.” 

“I doubt that very much! The 

%/ 

chances are one in a million of your 
ever stumbling on certain facts that 
I did. I warn you — Independent 
Fourteen’s lost for good if you do 
not turn me loose.” 

“That may be,” smiled Hartly. 
Suddenly he burst into laughter. 
“But surely you didn’t think we were 
going to operate your device. It 
would cripple our economy if we 
worked it to one percent of its ca- 
pacity. That machine of yours is im- 
possible — now. We may use it for 
certain purposes which we shall de- 
cide, but your program of operation 
was a joke.” 

Train and Ann looked at each 
other. “I think, Barney,” she said 
softly, “that sooner or later we’ll kill 
this little man.” 

“Yes. We will because we’ll have 
to. I’ll be back, Ann — wait for me.” 

“Captain,” broke in Hartly to the 
officer, “here is a warrant of trans- 
portation signed by the Commission- 
er. It authorizes you to remove the 
prisoner to a suitable institution for 
indefinite detention. I think that had 
best be M-15.” 

T RAIN HAD BEEN hustled into a 
police-car and rushed to the out- 
skirts of the city. There his guard 
turned him over to another group in 



grey uniforms. He looked for insignia 
but found none. A policeman said 
to him, before driving off, “These 
men don’t talk and they don’t ex- 
pect prisoners to. Watch your step — 
goodbye.” 

Train’s first question as to who 
his guards were was met with a 
hammer-like blow in the face. Silent- 
ly they shoved him into an armored 
car, as grey and blank as their uni- 
forms, and all he knew was that they 
were driving over rough roads with 
innumerable twists and turns. At 
last the car stopped and they dragged 
him out. 

He almost cried out in surprise — 
they were at a rocket-port. It was 
small and well-hidden by surround- 
ing trees and hills, but seemed com- 
plete. On the field was a rocket the 
like of which he had never seen. 
Without windows save for a tiny 
pilot’s port, comparatively bare of 
markings, and heavily armored, it 
loomed there as a colossal enigma. 

His guards took his arms and 
walked him to the ship. Silently a 
port opened, making a runway with 
the ground, and other men in grey 
descended. They took Train and the 
single sheet of paper that was his 
doom and dragged him into the ship. 

“Where ,” he asked abruptly, 

and a club descended on his head. 

He opened his eyes with the feel 
of cold water on his forehead. An in- 
verted face smiled at him. “Feel- 
ing better?” it asked. 

Train sat up: “Yes, thanks. Now 
suppose you tell me where we are 
and what in hell’s going to become 
of us.” He stared about him at their 
quarters; they were in a little room 
of metal plates with no door ap- 
parent. 

“I think we’re on a prison ship,” 
said his companion. “They were ap- 
parently delaying it for your arrival. 



62 



COSMIC STORIES 



We should be taking off shortly.” 

“Yes but where are we going?” 

“Didn’t you know?” asked the 
other with pity in his eyes. “This 
ship goes to M-15.” 

“I never heard of it or him. What 
is it?” 

“Not many know it by its official 
number,” said the other carefully and 
slowly, “but rumors of its existence 
are current almost everywhere. It 
it a planetoid in a tight orbit be- 
tween Mercury and Vulcan — an arti- 
ficial planetoid.” 

He smiled grimly: “For eighty 

years, it has been in operation as 
a private prison for those who of- 
fend against World Research. Em- 
ployees of the Syndicate who attempt 
to hold out work they have developed 
with the company’s equipment make 
up one part of tie prison rolls. At- 
tempted violence against high officers 
also accounts for many of the in- 
mates.” Suddenly his eyes flashed 
and he drew himself up. “And I am 
proud,” he said, “to be one of those.” 

Train moistened his lips. “Did 
you,” he asked hesitatingly, “try to 
kill—” 

“No, not kill. I am a chemist, and 
chemistry means mathematical logic. 
If one can produce the effects of 
death without creating the state it- 
self, the punishment is far less. I 
am only human, and so I dosed — a 
certain corporation official — with a 
compound which will leave him less 
than a mindless imbecile in a month.” 

“Then I certainly belong here with 
you. If anything, I’m the greater 
criminal. You only stole the brains 
of one man; I tried to cripple the 
Syndicate entire.” 

“A big job — a very big job! What 
did—” 

His words were cut off by a shat- 
tering, mechanical roar that rattled 



them about their little room like peas 
in a pod. 

“Hold on!” shouted the man to 
Train above the noise, indicating the 
handgrips set in the floor. “We’re 
going up !” 

They flattened themselves, clutched 
the metal rods. Train was sick to 
his stomach with the sudden explo- 
sive hops of the ship as it jerked 
itself from the ground, but soon its 
gait steadied and the sputtering 
rocket settled down to a monotonous 
roar. 

He rose and balanced himself on 
the swaying door of their cell. “Next 
stop,” he said grimly, “M-15!” 

CHAPTER II 

L AWRENCE Train’s cell- 

mate on the prison ship — 
stirred uneasily and nudged 
the other. 

“What is it?” 

“Listen to that exhaust. Either 
something’s gone wrong or we’re go- 
ing to land. How many days have 
we been going?” 

“They’ve fed us twenty-three 
times.” 

“Probably two weeks in space. 
That should be about it. Do you feel 
the gravity?” 

Train rolled over. “It’s faint, but 
it’s there. We must have landed al- 
ready — the motion we feel is the ship 
shifting around on the landing field.” 
As though in confirmation of his 
words, the door to their cell that had 
been closed for two long weeks 
snapped open to admit two of their 
captors. The grey-clad men gestured 
silently and the prisoners got to their 
feet. Neither dared to speak; Train 
remembered the blow that had been 
his last answer, and so did Lawrence. 
They walked slowly ahead of their 
guards to the exit-port of the ship, 




RETURN FROM M-15 



63 



not daring to guess what they might 
see. 

Train walked first through the door 
and gasped. He was under a mighty 
dome of ferro-glass construction, be- 
yond which stars glittered coldly. 
They must have landed on the night- 
side of the artificial asteroid, for he 
could see the blazing corona of the 
sun eclipsed by the sphere on which 
he was standing. Fantastic promine- 
scences leaped out in the shapes of 
animals or mighty trees, changing 
and melting into one another with 
incredible slowness. It was hard to 
believe that each one of them must 
have been huge enough to swallow 
a thousand Jupiters at once, without 
a flicker. 

A guard prodded him savagely in 
the back. He began walking, trying 
his muscles against the strange, 
heady lack of gravity, mincing along 
at a sedate pace. They were headed 
for a blocky concrete building. 

The doors opened silently before 
them, and they marched down a short 
corridor into an office of convention- 
ally Terrestrial pattern. 

For the first time Train heard one 
of the guards speak. “Last two, sir,” 
he said to the uniformed man be- 
hind a desk. 

“You may leave, officers,” said the 
man gently. They saluted and disap- 
peared from the room. The man rose 
and, in a curiously soft voice, said: 
“Please be seated.” 

Train and Lawrence folded into 
comfortable chairs, eyed their captor 
uncertainly. Lawrence was the first 
to speak. 

“Is there anything I can do for 
you?” he asked with flat incongruity. 

“Yes,” said the man. “May I have 
your names?” 

“Train and Lawrence,” said the 
chemist. The man wrote in a book 
sunk flush with the desk. 



“Thank you. And your reasons for 
commitment to M-15?” 

“In my case, attempted murder,” 
replied Lawrence. “In Train's, black- 
mail and theft. At least, so we are 
given to understand.” 

“Of course,” said the man behind 
the desk, writing in the information. 
“It is my duty as administrator of 
this asteroid to inform you as well 
as I may of your functions here and 
what treatment you may expect.” 

He coughed and sat up straighter. 
“You may well wonder,” he began 
pretentiously, “why you have been 
sent to this bleak spot to expiate your 
sin against society.” 

“Rebellion against the Syndicate, 
you mean,” snapped Train harshly. 

“Be that as it may,” continued 
their informant w 7 ith a shrug, “this 
is an officially constituted place of 
detention under charter and super- 
vision by the Terrestrial League. 
Certain cases are sent to us for cor- 
rective measures associated formerly 
with World Research Incorporated. 
Therefore, it is only proper that they 
should be assigned to experimental 
work tending to advance the progress 
of humanity and raise its cultural 

V 

level. 

“Your work will be a soil; of manu- 
facturing process of an extremely 
delicate nature. However, mechani- 
cal controls and checks will make 
blunders and errors impossible after 
a short period of instruction. You 
two men have been technicians of a 
high order of skill; let us hope that 
you will redeem yourselves by appli- 
cation to your assigned task.” 

He sat back with a smile. “Now, 
unless there are any questions — ” 
“There damn well are,” snapped 
Lawrence. “In the first place, is there 
any communication with the outside 
world?” 

“None whatsoever. Evil influences 




64 



COSMIC STORIES 



might convince you that all here is 
not for the best, and persuade you 
to foolish acts of violence. We leave 
nothing to chance.” 

Train had had enough ; he was 
going to get this soft-spoken fiend 
if it were his last living act. With a 
snarl in his throat he leaped at the 
desk, only to bring up smashing his 
face against some invisible barrier. 
Amazed, he put his hands over the 
frozen, quite transparent surface be- 
tween his tormenter and him. 

“Superglass,” said the man quietly, 
smiling as on a child. “As I said, we 
leave nothing to chance.” 

ifPW^HIS IS your cell,” said the 
guard — one they had not seen 
before. He waved them into a spot- 
less chamber, small and square, fea- 
turing two comfortable bunks and 
elaborate sanitary facilities. 

Train sat on one of the bunks, 
dazed. “I can’t understand it,” he 
burst out suddenly and violently. 
“This whole business is rotten with 
contradictions.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Law r - 
rence absently, switching the faucet 
on and off. 

“It's this sort of thing. They stuck 
us on this asteroid to die, we know. 
And yet, look at this room! Perfect 
for comfort and health. Consider our 
reception : a very skillful welcome 
designed to soothe one’s ruffled spirit 
and put him in a cooperative frame 
of mind. Of course, it didn’t happen 
to work with us, because we have 
very special rages against the system 
and all it stands for.” 

“It’s very simple,” said Lawrence 
thoughtfully. “They don’t want us 
on Earth and they do want us here 
very badly.” 

“Simple?” Train snorted. “I could 
have been shot down like a dog in 
Hartly’s office two weeks ago, and yet 



he packed me off here at a terrible 
expense in salaries, fuel, and wear of 
the ship. I don’t think it was fear of 
punishment of any kind that stopped 
him from destroying me then and 
there. They need me out on this 
chunk of rock. And I think it has 
something to do with where the place 
is, too.” 

“How so?” 

“Like this. It stands to reason that 
if you put an asteroid in a tight orbit 
as near as this to the sun, you need 
a lot of power — expensive power — to 
keep her there. It would be a lot 
easier and cheaper to put the orbit 
out somewhere between Jupiter and 
Neptune, and would be fully as acces- 
sible, or inaccessible, all depending on 
how you look at it. Ships wouldn’t 
have to have sun-armor, which costs 
plenty, and they wouldn’t run the 
risk of getting caught in an electric 
twister or prominescence.” 

“So this place,” said Lawrence 
slowly, “is more than a prison.” 
“Obviously. Remember the ancient 
motto : Tf it pays, they’ll do it.’ ” 
“And if it doesn’t, they won’t. 
What was it that smiling gentleman 
said about congenial occupations com- 
mensurable with our training?” 
“That’s it! They manufacture 
something here that needs trained 
men and sunlight in huge quanti- 
ties.” 

“Then why not hire workers? Why 
run the risk of having convicts re- 
sponsible for the production of a val- 
uable article or substance? It must 
be valuable, by the way. Just think 
of what it cost to get us here, to say 
nothing of the expense of building 
and maintaining this setup.” 

Train’s face went grim. “I can 
guess. It must mean that there’s 
a fair chance that the substance is 
so deadly that the men who manu- 
facture it, even with all suitable and 



RETURN FROM M-15 



65 



possible guards and shields, must be 
poisoned by it so that they die at 
their work after a time.” 

“Yes,” said Lawrence, “you must 
be right.” There was a long silence, 
then a guard banged his stick on 
their door. 

“You're going to work,” he called 
in on them. The door was unlocked ; 
the two walked out as martyrs 
might. 

“This way,” said the guard. 

H E SHOWED THEM into a nar- 
row tiled room. “Begin by 
sealing those bottles. You'll find 
torches and material in your cabi- 
nets.” He walked out, closing the 
door behind him. 

Train stared at the row of open 
flasks that stood on a shelf like so 
many deadly snakes. “What are they, 
Lawrence?” he asked hoarsely. 

“I had an idea all along — ” whis- 
pered the chemist. He took one of 
the flasks carefully by the neck and 
spilt some of its contents on a com- 
position-topped table. “Looks like 
ordinary table salt, doesn't it?” 

“Yes. But it has a smell like noth- 
ing on earth I know.” 

Lawrence, with the attitude of a 
scientist who knows and demands 
that everything should be in its 
place, opened a standard supply-cab- 
inet and brought out, without look- 
ing, an ochre filter and a connected 
burner. He played the flames on the 
crystals and squinted through the 
glass carefully, turning it at sharp 
and precise angles. Finally he re- 
placed the filter absently and incin- 
erated the little heap of stuff on the 
table. 

“One of the mysteries of the chem- 
ical world is solved,” he said. “That 
stuff is thalenium chloride.” 

“Never heard of it.” 



“You're fortunate. It's the filthi- 
est narcotic that ever cursed a race. 
Fortunately, only the wealthiest can 
afford to take it. Seeing the set-up 
required to manufacture it, that's 
understandable. 

“Thalenium's supposed to be a so- 
lar element — unstable — made up in 
the sun's core. They named it after 
the Muse of Comedy, for some reason 
or other. I never came across an au- 
thentic case of thalenium poisoning, 
but it's supposed to cause hallucina- 
tions viler than anything imaginable 
to the normal mind. External mani- 
festations are great spasms of laugh- 
ter — hence, comedy and the comic 
muse.” 

Train stared at the innocent-ap- 
pearing crystals. “And we have to 
handle it?” 

“No danger, yet, I suppose, if we 
are careful.” 

Lawrence picked up a flask full of 
the narcotic with tongs. “Like this,” 
he said, skillfully playing a stream 
of flame across its tapering spout. 
He set it down and quickly slipped a 
cap over the softened glass. “Then,” 
he added, “you appear to spray it 
with this stuff.” He squirted a film 
of heavy liquid on the cap. It set 
sharply, and letters and figures came 
out on it. 

“Authentic thalenium chloride, 
c. p., 500 mm.,” he read. “Clever 
devil, World Research!” 

They set to work, moving like ma- 
chines, sealing the flasks in three 
sharp operations. 

“There's no danger yet,” observed 
Lawrence. “I don't know, and can't 
imagine, what the process of its ac- 
tual manufacture may be, but we'll 
find that out later. If the stuff is 
prepared direct as the chloride, it 
might be fairly harmless, but if free 
metallic thalenium is used then there 




66 



COSMIC STORIES 



must be hell to pay among the work- 
ers.” 

“Then there’s no point, as yet, in 
going on strike?” 

“Certainly not. Everything’s gravy 
so far. And of course, it’s going to 
be gravy as long as we do our work 
faithfully, obediently, and not too in- 
telligently. Thus, for example, it 
pays to make minor mistakes like 
this one.” He took a sealed bottle 
firmly by the neck and snapped it 
against the edge of the table. It 
shattered and spilled over the floor. 

“I get the idea. We case the joint 
for as long as we can, staying away 
from the dangerous operations. Then 
we escape?” He poured an acid over 
the salt on the floor; it bubbled and 
gave off thin wisps of vapor. 

Lawrence scattered a neutralizing 
base over the acid. It became a 
white froth that he flushed down a 
floor-gutter. “I see,” he remarked, 
returning to his work, “that we’ve 
been thinking along somewhat sim- 
ilar lines.” 

“I have a machine,” said Train ir- 
relevantly. “I developed it all by 
myself — no, I’m forgetting my girl- 
friend, a very competent head for de- 
tails — and if I get back to Earth and 
have two weeks to myself, along with 
reasonable equipment, I guarantee 
that I’ll wipe World Research and all 
that’s rotten in it off the face of the 
earth and out of the cosmos, too.” 

“Sounds remarkable. What does it 
do?” 

Train told him. 

The chemist whistled. “Quite out 
of my field,” he said. “It takes a 
physicist to dope out those thhigs 
that really count.” 

“Independent Fourteen, they call 
it,” said Train with a tight-drawn 
smile. “And I swear by every god in 
the firmament that nothing — 
nothing — is going to keep me from 



getting back to Earth, setting up In- 
dependent Fourteen, and blowing 
World Research to hell!” 

CHAPTER III 

T RAIN was lying half-awake 
on his cot when the door 
slammed shut. “Hiya, Law- 
rence.” 

The chemist bent over him. “Get 
up, Barney. It’s happened.” 

Train sat up abruptly. “How do 
you know?” he snapped. 

“I was just seeing the Oily Bird.” 
That was the name they had given 
the infuriating man who greeted 
them on their arrival. “He says we’ve 
made good in the packaging depart- 
ment and we’re going to be promoted. 
He still doesn’t know that we are 
wise as to what is going on.” 

“Promoted, eh? What’s that 
mean?” 

“He said we were going into the 
production end of the concern. That 
we’d have to handle the stuff with- 
out tongs. Be exposed to sunlight. 
And, at this distance, that’s surely 
fatal in a short time.” 

“I didn’t think it would come this 
quickly,” said Train. “Then we’ll 
have to dope something out — fast.” 
“Fast is the word. How about 
slugging a guard?” 

“Too crude. Much too crude. They 
must have an elaborate system of 
pass-words and countersigns; other- 
wise it would have been done suc- 
cessfully long ago. And Lord knows 
how many times it’s failed!” 

“Right,” said the chemist. “We 
can’t slug a guard. But maybe we 
can bribe one?” 

“I doubt it. We know it hasn’t 
succeeded. I suppose they make big 
money as such things go.” 

“Can we put psychological screws 
on one? Know any little tricks like 




RETURN FROM M-15 



67 



suggesting hatred against the sys- 
tem he's working for?" 

Train wrinkled his brow. “Yes, 
but they are good only after a long 
period of constant suggestion. We 
have to move at once. Lawrence, 
can you play sick?" 

“As well as you. Why?" 

“Arid do you remember the shape 
of the eyebrows on the guard we 
have this week?" 

“Have you gone bats?" demanded 
the chemist, staring at Train angrily. 
“This is no time to be playing jokes." 

The scientist raised his hand. 
“This isn't a joke, or a game, either. 
Those eyebrows may mean our sal- 
vation." 

Lawrence picked up a pencil and 
paper and sketched out what he re- 
membered of their guard's face. 
“There," he said thrusting it under 
Train's nose. 

Train studied the drawing. “I 
think this is accurate," he mused. “If 
it is, we may be back on Earth in two 
weeks." 

T HE GUARD KNOCKED on the 
door, and there was no answer. 
Suspiciously he pushed it open and 
entered, half-expecting to be at- 
tacked. But he found one of the 
prisoners in bed with a sallow skin, 
breathing in shallow gulps. 

“Lawrence is sick, I think," said 
Train. 

“Yeah? Too bad. I'll call the 
medico." 

“No," gasped the patient, “not 
yet." 

The guard turned to go. “I have 
to call him when anyone is sick. It 
might start an epidemic, otherwise." 

“Can you wait just a minute?" 
asked Train. “I know how to handle 
him when he gets one of his attacks. 
It isn't anything contagious. Just 



mild conjuctivitis of the exegetical 
peritoneum." 

“That a fact?" asked the guard. 
“How do you handle him?" 

“Easy enough," said Train. “May 
I borrow your flash-light?" 

“Sure!" The guard handed over a 
slim pencil-torch. 

“Thank you." The scientist bal- 
anced the light on the broad back of 
a chair. “Won't you sit down?" he 
asked the guard. “This will take a 
few minutes." 

“Sure." Their warder watched 
with interest as Train dimmed the 
lights of the cell and switched on the 
flashlight so that it cast a tiny spot 
of radiance on a gleaming water 
faucet. The guard stared at it, fas- 
cinated. 

Train’s voice sank to a whispering 
drone. “Concentrate on the light. 
Block out every other thing but the 
light." 

The guard shifted uneasily. This 
was a strange way to treat a sick 
man, and the light was shining right 
in his eyes. Perhaps he had better 
call the medico after all. He was 
half decided to do so, but he felt 
tired and the chair was comfortable. 
What was it Train was saying? 

“By the time I have counted to 
twenty, you will be asleep. One . . ." 
The guard’s eyes grew heavy. “Con- 
centrate . . . block out everything 
but the light . . . everything but 
the light . . . seven . . ." 

The spot of light floated before the 
guard's face, distorting into strange 
shapes that shifted. He just barely 
heard Train drone “twelve" before he 
began to breathe deeply and hoarsely. 

Train switched on the lights and 
slipped the flashlight into his pocket. 
“Perfect specimen, Lawrence," he 
exulted. “You can always tell by the 
eyebrows." 

“Fascinating," returned the erst- 



68 



COSMIC STORIES 



while victim to conjunctivitis of the 
exegetical peritoneum as he climbed 
out of bed. “What now?” 

Train rolled back the guard’s eye- 
lids with a practiced thumb. “Ask 
him anything,” he said. “He’ll tell 
you whatever we want to know.” 
Lawrence cleared his throat, bent 
over the sleeping man. “When are 
you leaving for Earth?” 

“This afternoon. One hour from 
now.” 

“Do the others know you?” 

“They never saw me, blit they 
know my name.” 

“What are the passwords on the 
way to the ship?” 

“Front gate, rabies. Second gate, 
tuberculosis. Field guard, leprosy. 
Ship port, cancer.” 

“Someone must have had a grim 
sense of humor,” whispered Law- 
rence to Train. 

“What are your duties on the 
ship?” 

“I have no duties.” 

The chemist snapped: “One of us 
must take his place.” 

“Yes. Which one of us? No, we 
won’t have to decide. I’m going. 
Aside from such details as the fact 
that his uniform will fit me, but 
would look suspiciously baggy on 
you, I have a chance to do something 
about this whole rotten system when 
I get back. You would only be able 
to commit more murders, or near- 
murders.” 

The chemist’s lips whitened. 
“You’re right,” he whispered. “When 
you have the chance, promise me 
that you’ll wipe out this asteroid and 
the filthy stuff they manufacture 
here. I don’t think I’ll be around by 
that time; exposure to the sun might 
get me sooner than we think.” 

“I know,” said Train shortly, “and 
I promise.” He gripped the other’s 
hand and shoulder for the moment, 



then turned to the unconscious guard 
and began a machine-gun fire of 
questions that were to stock his 
brain with every secret datum held 
inviolate by the militia of the man- 
made planetoid. 

Ak NN RILEY was frying break- 
fast bacon and eggs; she did 
not hear the door of her flat open 
softly and close. Behind her a voice 
suddenly spoke. “Cut me in on some 
of that.” 

She turned and gasped: “Barney, 
you sonova gun!” she yelled and flew 
into his arms. 

“It was really nothing,” he ex- 
plained over the coffee. “They just 
hadn’t figured on the hypnosis angle, 
and I took care not to drop any 
bricks on the voyage. The inefficiency 
of that system is appalling. If I were 
managing it, I could step up produc- 
tion of their rotten stuff three hun- 
dred per cent and see that no pris- 
oner even thought of escaping.” 
“Yeah,” she said skeptically, “I 
know. But what are you going to 
do now that you’re back?” 

“I’m safe for a month. That’s how 
long it takes for a ship to get there 
and back, and they haven’t any other 
means of communication. The near- 
ness to the sun makes radio or beam 
messages impossible. So, first, I’m 
going swimming.” 

“No, you aren’t,” she said coldly, 
a gleam in her eye. “I’ve been re- 
drafting Independent Fourteen, and 
all the details are there down on 
paper again — except for the ones you 
have in your head. We’re going to 
build that machine and build it fast 
and powerful. Then we’ll throw it in 
the teeth of T. J. Ilartly and Wo Ad 
Research, Incorporated. And we’re 
going to fling it so hard there won’t 
be a sound tooth left in their 
mouths.” 




RETURN FROM M-15 



69 



“Yes, my pet. I must confess I 
had some such thought in my head 
when I decided to come back to 
Earth.” 

“We can rig up enough of a lab,” 
she went on, “right here in my flat. 
There’s no more experimentation to 
do; we just need the bare essentials 
with a slight margin for error.” 

“Splendid,” he nodded, reaching 
for another slice of toast. “We’ll need 
about a hundred yards of silver wire, 
some standard castings, and a few 
tubes. You’d better go out and get 
them now — shop around; we can’t 
afford to get the most expensive. 
Where have you got the plans ?” 

They rose from the table and Ann 
drew a huge scroll of paper from the 
closet. “Here they are. Full scale, 
this time.” 

Train scanned them. “Hey! This 
distributor wasn’t on the designs I 
gave you.” 

“Oh, I just filled it in,” she de- 
murred. 

The scientist scowled. “Hereafter,” 
he proclaimed, “all filling in will be 
done by Doctor Train. Now gwan out 
and buy the stuff while I work out 
the missing circuits.” He seated him- 
self at a desk, brooding over the 
plans. 

He looked up when a firm tap came 
on his shoulder. 

“Well?” he asked without turning 
his head. 

“Excuse me, young man, but a 
point of morality has just come up. 
Where do you expect to live while 
you’re building Independent Four- 
teen?” 

“Right here,” he answered calmly. 
“First, I can’t afford to live any- 
wheres else — even though I drew a 
guard’s salary, and that isn’t too 
small. But there’s that danger to 
consider. You wouldn’t want your 



collaborator to be snatched up and 
deported again, would you?” 

“Fundamentally,” she began in a 
determined voice, “I’m a conventional 
person. And I do not like neighbors 
talking about me as though I were 
a thing loathsome and accursed in 
the eyes of gods and men.” 

“What have neighbors to do with 
it?” 

“Don’t you think they would con- 
sider it a bit peculiar were a man 
suddenly to come to my flat and 
began to live with me as though it 
were the most natural thing in the 
world ?” 

“Isn’t it?” he replied. “In the eyes 
of Science nothing is unclean or to 
be shunned.” 

“Dr. Train!” she flared, “you are 
going to marry me whether you like 
it or not. At once!” 

He stared at her. “I never really 
thought of it like that,” he began 
. . . but Ann was already speaking 
into the mouthpiece of the phone. 
“Central Services, please.” 

She returned to him. “There — that 
was easy, wasn’t it? He’ll be here 
in a moment; he lives a few houses 
down.” 

There was a knock on the door. 
“Central Service is Super Service,” 
quoted Ann. “That’s him now.” 

She rose to admit a sickly individ- 
ual who greeted her in a brisk, flabby 
voice. “Miss Riley?” 

“Yes. And that object is Doctor 
Train, my spouse-to-be.” 

“Thank you,” said the agent, open- 
ing a book. “Please sign in dupli- 
cate.” Ann scribbled her name and 
passed the book to Train, who also 
signed. 

“Two dollars for ceremony and 
registration,” said the anemic Cu- 
pid. Train handed over the money 
and limply accepted the certificate 
in return. 




70 



COSMIC STORIES 



“Thank you,” said the agent. “I 
now pronounce you man and wife.” 
He walked out through the door, 
closing it gently behind him. 

“Well,” said Ann, after a long 
pause. 

“Well, what?” 

“Aren't you going to kiss the 
bride ?” 

“Oh.” He did so until she pounded 
his back for air. “I must be a roman- 
ticist,” he complained, “but I always 
wanted an old-fashioned wedding be- 
fore a city clerk.” 

“Times have changed,” she philos- 
ophised. “The tempo of life is accel- 
erated; things move at a fast and 
furious pace in these mad days. The 
old conventions remain, but one com- 
plies with them as swiftly and effort- 
lessly as possible. It helps to retain 
the illusion of gentility.” 

“Then,” he said, “since the illusion 
is saved, let's get to work. One hun- 
dred yards of silver wire — no, make 
it seventy; we can always buy more.” 

CHAPTER IV 



THAT'S that thing?” 
as ^ ec ^ Ann, peering 
yff curiously at an odd- 

looking setup Train was working on. 

“A little something. I plan to scare 
hell out of Hartly with it. A fre- 
quency inductor — I can get the wave- 
length of his inter-office system and 
bellow in his ear.” 

“Very cute,” she said thoughtfully. 
“What's the second tube for?” 
“Steps up the tertiary vibrations. 
I could have used a seven-phase 
transformer with better effect, but a 
tube's cheaper and we happened to 
have one left over.” 

Pie twisted a final screw contact 
into place. “Finished,” he announced, 
“shall we call up T. J. ?” 

The curiosity was gone. There was 



only sudden anguish in her eyes as 
she clung to him. “Barney!” She 
buried her face against his shoulder. 
“What shall we do if anything goes 
wrong?” 

For a brief second her fears leaped 
through him as he comforted her in 
the only way he knew. Then cold 
reason reached in. His voice was 
steady as he answered: “Nothing 

will. Independent Fourteen's checked 
and triple-checked. We've tested it 
and it clicks every time. What are 
you worrying about?” 

“Hartly's a smart man. Pie has to 
be to stay on top of World Research. 
He must have things up his sleeve 
that no one has ever dreamed about. 
Wasn't he a scientist himself before 
he rose from the ranks to the execu- 
tive department? It's men like that 
you have to watch out for. Never 
trust a reformed technician.” 

Train smiled happily. “There’s 
nothing to be afraid of. IP's the 
nature of Independent Fourteen that 
has him licked before he can start. 
With this priceless gimmick we have 
a machine that will give us unlimited 
personal power and protection. I'm 
going to play our cards for every- 
thing they're worth.” 

“Barney, isn’t there a chance that 
we might compromise?” She waved 
aside the protests that sprang to his 
lips. “I know,” she said. “The Syndi- 
cate's the greediest octopus that ever 
got its suckers around the life-blood 
of a world. It's utterly contemptible 
— and yet, it's too powerful for its 
own good — and maybe for ours. 
Couldn't we compromise and lull their 
suspicions?” 

“Not one bloody chance in a bil- 
lion!” Train snapped harshly. “Inde- 
pendent Fourteen's our only trump 
card, but it's the winner in this game 
as soon as we see fit to play it.” 

“I guess you’re right, Barney,” 



RETURN FROM M-15 



71 



said Ann wearily. “Call up Mr. Hart- 
ly on that gimmick while I warm up 
Fourteen.” She turned to a corner of 
the room cleared except for a bulky 
piece of machinery, protrusive with 
tubes and coils, built around heavy 
castings bolted together, mounted on 
wheels. Ann fingered a switchboard 
carefully, and tubes began to glow 
with fiery electrical life while sparks 
snapped from point to point. 

“Mr. Hartly, please,” said Train 
quietly into a grid of his instrument. 

“Hartly speaking,” boomed from a 
loudspeaker connected with the tiny 
device. “Who is this?” 

“Dr. Train. Do you remember?” 
There was a sudden click. “You 
can’t hang up, Hartly. If you look, 
you’ll find that your phone’s blown 
out. I’m using irregular channels.” 
A long pause, then Hartly’s voice 
came through again, this time tinged 
with wonder. “How did you get back 
from M-15, Train, and when did you 
do it?” 

“You paid me to come back, Hart- 
ly. I drew the full salary of a guard 
while returning to Earth on hir regu- 
lar vacation. I’ve been here some 
twenty days.” 

“Extraordinary,” breathed the 
great man. “And I suppose you’ve 
been setting up that silly machine of 
yours?” 

“Not so silly,” replied Train omi- 
nously. “It works like Merlin’s wand 
— that neat and efficient.” 

“Then it’s no use my sending men 
around to Miss Riley’s flat — I assume 
that is where you are — to arrest you 
as an escaped convict.” 

“No use whatsoever. I can make 
them feel very foolish, if I so desire. 
Or I can simply wipe them out with- 
out any fuss at all. I’m a practical 
man, Hartly. Most scientists are — 
you were one once, yourself, I un- 
derstand.” 



“Bacteriologist. Occupied in sav- 
ing lives. It was wonderful for 
awhile, but I found eventually that 
there was no future in it.” 

“Despicable attitude, Hartly. It 
shows up throughout your career. It 
was your career, by the by, that I 
want to discuss with you, anyway.” 
“What about my career?” 

“Just two words, Hartly. It’s 
over.” 

H ARTLY S CHUCKLE was silk- 
smooth. “How so, Doctor? I 
was under the impression that it had 
barely begun.” 

“I’m warning you, Hartly, not to 
take this as a joke. I haven’t for- 
gotten what it was you wanted to do 
to me on M-15, and what I was sup- 
posed to be doing in the process. I’d 
have more scruples about killing a 
scorpion than you, Hartly.’ 

“No doubt about that,” came the 
answer. “So would many misguided 
persons. But the interesting thing 
about it is that they have always 
ended up among insuperable diffi- 
culties. You may make me a con- 
crete proposition, Doctor.” 

“I may and I will! The proposi- 
tion is this: your unqualified resigna- 
tion from the directorship and or- 
ganization of World Research Syndi- 
cate, and an assignment to me of un- 
limited reorganization powers for the 
period of one year.” 

Hartly’s voice was mocking in 
tone. “Yes? World Research is a 
rather large enterprise. Do you think 
one year would be enough?” 

“Ample. Your answer?” 

A long pause, then: “My answer 
is unqualified refusal.” 

“Based on what? Make no mis- 
take: I shan’t hesitate to blot you 
out any longer than you would hesi- 
tate to do the same to me — unless 
you capitulate. And the difference, 



72 



COSMIC STORIES 



T. J., is that I can do it and you can- 
not. 

“Admitted,” came back Hartly's 
voice cheerfully. “But surely, Doc- 
tor, you didn't think that I have not 
been preparing — in fact, been pre- 
pared — for just such an occasion as 
this ever since I came into power?” 
“Explain,” snapped the scientist. 
“And talk fast and straight.” 

Hartly's voice was now unper- 
turbed. “When a question of conflict 
arises, it's either a matter of per- 
sonal gain or benefit to the world. 
I've been faced by determined men 
before, Train. Those who were after 
personal advancement could be com- 
promised with and later eliminated 
by quick thinking and quicker action. 

“However, altruists presented a 
different problem. Most of them 
could not be bribed. Some of them 
were powerful enough, by reason of 
their ability or backing, or both, to 
issue a flat defiance to me. Those I 
threatened with the thing they loved 
most — humanity.” 

“Come to the point, Hartly. I'm 
not too patient a man in some ways.” 
“I was a bacteriologist once,” went 
on Hartly. “And, in the course of my 
research, I developed a nasty variety 
of bread-mould. It attacks anything 
organic and spreads like wildfire. I 
know of nothing to check it, nor does 
anyone else. It thrives at any tem- 
perature and flourishes off corrosive 
agents.” 

“So?” 

“So, Doctor Train, make one false 
move, as they say in melodrama, and 
I release an active culture of that 
mould; you will then see your flesh 
crumble away. I realize that alone 
wouldn’t stop you, but the thought 
of what will then happen to the teem- 
ing millions of Earth will.” 

Another silence, then: “I decided 
long ago, Train, that no one would 



wipe me out. True, someone might 
come along with bigger and better 
power, even as you have done, but, 
as you can see, if there's any blotting 
out to be done, I shall do it myself. 

“It will mean the end of World 
Research and of me. It will also 

X 

mean the end of all animal life on 
this planet. If you want a Pyrrhic 
victory, Train, you may have it.” 

“It's horrible !” cried Ann, her eyes 
wide with the shock of it. “Can he 
do it, Barney?” 

“Miss Riley,” came through the 
voice. “Perhaps you remember the 
occasion of our first meeting. Do you 
think me the type of man to try a 
bluff?” 

Train turned to the transmitter of 
his tiny outfit. “I know you're not 
bluffing, Hartly. I know also that 
you'll try every means of persuasion 
you know first, because you don't 
particularly want to be wiped out, 
even by your own hands, yet. But 
it won't work; you'll try this last 
resort of yours because the ethics of 
business, which doesn't blink at the 
murder of an individual, wouldn't 
blink at the murder of a planet. 

“We're going to make a call on 
you very soon, Hartly. My wife, my- 
self, and Independent Fourteen.” 

CHAPTER V 

T RAIN PAUSED for a mo- 
ment in thought. “Ann,” he 
said, “do you think Hogan 
would want to help us?” 

“That's a fine favor to ask of any 
neighbor. Let's see.” 

Thev knocked on the door of an 
adjoining apartment, and the stac- 
cato rattle of a typewriter suddenly 
cut short. The door swung open, and 
a little man presented himself. “Aft- 
ernoon, Trains,” he said. “What can 
I do for you?” 



RETURN FROM M-15 



73 



“Hogan,” began Ann winsomely, 
“we think that you ought to take the 
afternoon off. Your work’s telling on 
you.” 

“Not so I’ve notieed it. What do 
you want me to do? More shopping 
for copper tubing? I’m a busy man, 
Mrs. Train.” 

“We know that, Hogan,” broke in 
Barney. “But can you spare us a few 
hours? We need help badly. You’ll 
have to push some heavy machinery 
and maybe do a bit of scrap- 
ping. . 

“A fight! Why didn’t you say so 
in the first place? Wait; I’ll get me 
gun.” He vanished, and they heard 
the typewriter rattle off a few more 
steaming paragraphs. 

The little man appeared again, 
hefting a ponderous automatic. 
“Who do we have to pop off?” he 
asked amiably. 

Ann shivered. “Bloodthirsty, isn’t 
he?” 

“They bred us that way in South 
America. Is it a riot, or what?” 

“No, none of them. We’re going to 
blow up World Research.” 

“Splendid! I’d often thought of 
how elegant it would be to do that, 
if only some way could be figured 
out. Where’s the machinery ye spoke 
of? I presume that is what you toss 
the bombs with.” 

“In our apartment. Only it isn’t 
bombs; it makes the most powerful 
explosive look like a slingshot in com- 
parison.” They walked back to 
Train’s flat and Ann pointed out In- 
dependent Fourteen. 

“That’s the junk,” she said simply. 

“It’s a powerful-looking bit of ma- 
chinery. But what does it do?” 

Ann told him briefly. 

“No!” he cried. “If it were as big 
as the Research Building it couldn’t 
do that!” 

“Calling us liars, mister?” 



“Not a bit of it. All right. It does 
what you say it will — I hope. What’s 
the campaign?” 

“We march on the Syndicate 
Building, pushing Independent Four- 
teen before us. It’s got wheels, you 
notice. The thing is nicely adjusted — 
it’ll function on any violent shock as 
well as the hand controls ; they know 
that, so they won’t make any at- 
tempt to blow it up. In fact they 
know all about it, but I don’t think 
they quite realize just how good it 

is. Otherwise they’d talk differently. 

“I’d better show you how to handle 

it. All you have to know about 
is this switchboard. The button here 
indicates radiation. The power will 
spread in all directions except in that 
of the operator and directly behind 
him. This other button is direction. 
That aims the influence of the ma- 
chine in a fairly tight beam. Its ac- 
tion is invisible, but it’s controlled 
by this pointer. And the results are 
soon apparent.” 

“And what could be the meaning 
of these cryptic signs?” asked Ho- 
gan, indicating a long vertical list of 
symbols running parallel to the slot 
of an indicator needle. 

“They are the chemical names of 
the elements.” 

“I seem to remember,” remarked 
Hogan, knitting his brows. 

“Got everything straight? Radi- 
ant, director, pointer, and elements? 

“Yes. We can go in my car, I sup- 
pose.” 

They eased the ponderous machine 
safely down the flight of stairs, then 
into Hogan’s car. Suddenly there 
boomed from Train’s frequency in- 
ductor the voice of Hartly. “Train!” 
it said. 

“Listening,” the scientist snapped 
back. 

“This is your last warning. I have 
a man across the street from you. 



74 



COSMIC STORIES 



He says that you’ve loaded Independ- 
ent Fourteen into a car. You seem 
to think I intend to back down on 
my promise to release the fungus.” 

“Not at all,” replied Barney cheer- 
fully, “not at all. On the contrary, 
I am convinced that you’ll not hesi- 
tate to pour the stuff out of your 
window as soon as we come in sight. 
In fact, I’m counting on it, Hartly. 
Don’t disappoint me, please.” 

“Then remember, Train, nothing 
. . . nothing . . . can stop the fun- 
gus. As you say, one false move 
nearer my building, and I release the 
culture.” 

“The false move is made, Hartly,” 
said Train, with steel in his voice. 
“In case your man hasn’t told you, 
the car has started. We are on our 
way.” 

He snapped off the transmitter. 

“What was that all about?” asked 
Hogan, his eyes on the road. 

“Just Hartly. He thinks he has a 
final stymie to work on me. Plans to 
release a kind of mould that eats 
away all organic matter. Fire cannot 
destroy or injure it, nor can chemi- 
cals. Once he releases it, it’ll spread 
through the world, attacking all live 
wood, grass, and animal life.” 

“Yeah? What are you going to do 
about it?” 

“Can’t you guess? Hartly still 
doesn’t realize that any power of his 
is just a joke so long as Independent 
Fourteen is in my hands. Pull up!” 

T HE CAR SKIDDED to a halt be- 
fore the building that housed 
World Research. “Take it out tender- 
ly, husband mine,” said Ann. “It 
means a lot to me.” 

There was a rattling from the 
pocket wherein Train had thrust his 
frequency inductor. He took it out, 
held it to his ear. 

Hartly’s voice was dry by now. 



“The bluff’s never been pushed this 
far by any man, Train. This is your 
last chance. I’m looking down at 
you, and I have the fungus in my 
hand. Train, I’m ready to drop this 
bottle.” 

“Are you, now?” The scientist’s 
voice bespoke amusement. “And 
what am I supposed to do about it?” 

“Abandon your machine and walk 
into the building. I’ll see that you 
are taken care of rightly. You’ll not 
regret it if you choose to compro- 
mise; you will if you do not.” 

Train laughed. “For once, Hartly, 
I’m holding every ace in the deck. 
Drop your little toy and see how use- 
less it is to you.” 

There was a long, tense pause. Ho- 
gan and Ann watched, but could see 
nothing. Train swiftly manipulated 
the little instruments on the control 
board. There was a little tinkle in 
the street near them. 

“There, Barney, there!” Ann 
screamed, pointing a trembling finger 
at a scarcely visible splotch of green. 
Train swung the pointer of the ma- 
chine on it even as it exploded up- 
ward into a bomb of poisonous vege- 
tation that rustled foully as it 
spread serpentine arms outward and 
up. 

Train slammed down the button 
that Hung the machine into action, 
swept the pointer right and left as 
the tubes sputtered angrily. 

“Glory!” muttered Hogan. The 
fungus had suddenly been arrested 
and now stood etched in silvery 
metal. 

“Free metallic magnesium,” said 
Train. “It works on a large scale 
and with one hundred per cent effi- 
ciency.” 

“Elements transmuted at will,” 
breathed Ann. “And nothing went 
wrong!” 

“And the machine will do — thac 



RETURN FROM M-15 



75 



— to anything?” demanded Hogan. 
“It has the Midas touch.” 

“That it has,” agreed the scientist, 
swinging the needle and shifting the 
slide. “And, unless I’m mistaken, 
those men mean us harm.” 

He swung the pointer against a 
squad of uniformed militia that were 
running from the huge doors of the 
building. The button went down, and 
the police went transparent, then 
gaseous. They vanished in puffs of 
vapor that sought the nearest solid. 

“Fluorine,” said Train quietly. 
“Those poor devils are just so much 
salt on the street and portico.” 

“Let's go in,” said Ann. They 
walked into the lobby, treading care- 
fully around the white crusts on the 
pavement. 

“Easy, Hogan,” warned Train as 
they pushed Independent Fourteen 
into an elevator under the eyes of 
the horrified attendant. “Take us to 
the Hartly floor,” he snapped at the 
latter, “and no harm will come to 
you. Otherwise . . .” He drew a 
sinister finger across his throat. 

The doors of the elevator rolled 
open and they carefully pushed the 
machine before them. “Come out, 
Hartly,” called Ann at the bronze 
doors to the inner office. 

“Come in and get me,” sounded 
from the frequency inductor in her 
hand. Resolutely they swung open 
the doors and marched in. Hartly 
was alone behind the desk. Quietly 
he lifted his hands, displayed two 
heavy pistols. 

“I haven't been too busy manag- 
ing my affairs to learn how to use 
these,” he remarked. “Stand away 
from that machine.” 

Train tensed himself to leap, fling- 
ing Fourteen into operation, but Ann 
touched his arm and he relaxed, 
stepped aside with her and Hogan. 
Hartly strode over and glanced at 



the machine. He set the slide ab- 
sently. “How does it work?” he 
asked. 

“Red end of the pointer directs the 
beam. Slide determines the element 
required. Button on the left starts 
the operation.” 

“The' red end?” asked Hartly, 
smiling. “You would say that. I'll 
try the black end first.” He aimed the 
black end at the little group of three, 
thus bringing the red end squarely 
on himself. 

“This button — ” he began, press- 
ing a thumb on it. But his words 
were cut short. A wild glare suf- 
fused his face as he brought up one 
of the pistols, but it fell from his 
hand, exploding as it hit the floor. 
He tried to speak, but a choking gasp 
was all his yellowing tongue could 
utter. 

“He didn't trust ye,” said Hogan 
sadly. “He thought ye meant him 
evil when ye told him the simple 
truth about the machine's operation. 
And that's why Mr. Hartly is now a 
statue of the purest yellow gold. The 
beast must weigh a ton at least.” 

“Hartly's never trusted anyone,” 
said Train. “I knew that he’d never 
take my word, so took a chance for 
all of us. Now he makes a very in- 
teresting statue.” 

“It's horrible,” said Ann. “We'll 
have them take it away.” 

“No,” replied Train. “It must stay 
here. There's a new life beginning 
now — at last the youth will be free 
to work at what they want and the 
era of Syndicate regimentation is 
over. 

“Let that statue remain there — as 
a picture of the old order and as a 
warning to the new.” 




THE COSMIAN LEA GEE 



T he cosmian league is 

an organization by means of 
which readers of this maga- 
zine can identify themselves more 
closely with other readers and with 
the editors and writers. It will serve 
as a bond, banding together in fra- 
ternity those hundreds of persons 
who feel the throb of the cosmos in 
their blood, whose mind3 soar with 
the concepts of the worlds to come, 
with the urge to see and to know all 
that there is to see and know, to do 
or to help to do all those things 
which will bring about the construc- 
tion of that future that can only be 
identified as “Cosmian.” 

By Cosmian we mean belonging to 
and part of the entire cosmos. The 
entire range of existence, knowledge, 
art, and history. The whole of the 
planets, stars, and galaxies; the 
atoms and molecules that make up 
the universe. A Cosmian is one who 
feels that he is by right of the cos- 
mos, that he is not bound to one 
planet or one plane, that he is by 
right free to traverse the universe, to 
conquer worlds, to master forces, to 
change and alter the stars to suit 
himself. A Cosmian feels no barriers, 
he acknowledges no boundaries to 
what is possible and what is impos- 
sible. 

There are many of us, hundreds of 
us, thousands of us. We are those 
whom H. G. Wells termed “Star-Be- 
gotten,” we are the forerunners of 



those men of the future who will call 
no planet home but all planets theirs. 
We refuse to be tied down to one age 
and one life, we insist upon our right 
to regard ourselves as above the 
Earthbound. Though we are not now 
able to do all that we feel ourselves 
competent for, that, we insist, is a 
temporary inconvenience which will 
be remedied as the invincible march 
of science goes forward. Meanwhile 
we join hands in strong fellowship. 
This is what we believe, this is what 
we hold: 

We believe that science can and 
will conquer the spaces between 
worlds, we believe that mankind can 
master science and push forward his 
boundaries to infinity itself. We be- 
lieve that human progress is ulti- 
mately invincible, that set-backs are 
only temporary, and that the march 
of humanity will triumph. We are 
prepared to do all in our power to ad- 
vance science and the progress of the 
human race. We recognize the en- 
tire universe as ours by heritage. 

The Cosmian League will not 
charter branches or set itself in ri- 
valry with any existing science-fic- 
tion organization. We approve of 
and support the Science-Fictioneers, 
the Science Fiction League, the Fu- 
turians, the Solaroids and all sincere 
groups. Cosmians seek for harmony 
in the name of science and progress. 
We urge those who see as we do to 
join. Fill out the enclosed coupon 
and mail it in. 



THE COSMIAN LEAGUE 
c/o COSMIC STORIES 
19 East 48th Street 
New York, N. Y. 

I am a science-fiction reader and a supporter of science and human progress. 
Please enroll me as a member of the Cosmian League. 



Name Age 

Address 

City State 



I enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope for my membership card. 



76 




PLANET LEA VE 



Juf, Clifton J3. K*uUa 

(Author of “Incredible Visitor,’’ “ The Battle of Chang-Da etc.) 




The Frogman said he could show Nels Sundgren a good time on the planet of Ujikee, 

but he should have added smelly too! 




earth m a x 

** yES?" Sundgrer 

looked up from the dis- 
mantled section of a parsector upor 
which he had been working*. His 
blue eyes widened with surprise 
Before him stood a seven foot tal 



brogite, one of the huge-headed na- 
tives of Planet 14, Aldebaran. Two 
jet brilliant eyes stared unblinkingly 
at the blond Earthman, Nels Sund- 
gren. The monster’s jaws moved, 
showing a triple row of canine-like 
teeth. 



77 




78 



COSMIC STORIES 



“I Xoma,'' the brogite uttered with 
an incongruous softness of voice. 
"Oxygen engineer. Have very much 
traveled and speak no doubt the very 
beautiful English. I see Earthman, 
yes?” 

"Right,” Nels Sundgren nodded 
slowly. At the present moment these 
two stood at the far end of the great 
rocketeer's engine repair room and 
save for the three or four small 
black-bodied, six handed little zanni- 
cans who were intent upon putting a 
repaired gravity-simulator together 
they were, for the time being, alone. 
"Glad to know you, Xoma. But you 
gave me a start. Fact is, I hadn't 
heard a word of English since we left 
Planet Ismusan.” 

"Also right,” Xoma, nodding his 
gargantuan green head solemnly, 
looked almost like a giant frog. He 
wore the woven bronze-mesh uni- 
form of a commercial rocketeer serv- 
ice. "Are four hundred ten crea- 
tures, passengers and crew, now on 
board and which represent seventy- 
two planets. You are only one from 
System of Sol which i3 renowned for 
humans. I like know’ you better, 
Sundgren your name, yes?” 

Impulsively the Earthman grinned, 
stuck out a grease-stained hand and 
gripped the seven-fingered appendage 
of the huge brogite. "All right, bud- 
dy, since we're shipmates and you 
speak English. Glory, it's something 
to hear a man's own language way 
out here.” 

"Very far from Earth, indeed,” 
Xoma acknowledged. "This system is 
cluster Messier 13 in Hercules, you 
understand? We land on seventeen 
planets before return trip back to 
Ismusan. You like Ismusan, no?” 

"Like it? Thunder no!” Sund- 
gren laughed bitterly. "The darkest, 
dirtiest, vermin-infested planet in the 
universe! I never did like an insect 



planet and these blamed Ismusanians 
— spider-men is what I call 'em.” 
"Very much of truth,” Xoma 
sucked in his breath noisily, indicat- 
ing pleased agreement. "On next 
voyage think to sign up for long jour- 
ney clear away from Hercules sys- 
tem. I very good oxygen engineer. 
Can get plenty contract.” 

"Sure, I know,” Sundgren nodded. 
"Never saw one of you brogites w ; ho 
wasn't an expert at something. But 
I’m afraid I'm just a fool mechanic, 
Xoma. We've been shooting through 
Messier 13 now for fourteen work 
shifts and I haven’t done a thing but 
repair one burned out parsector after 
another. And no one to talk to — ” 
"Very exact,” Xoma spoke up. "So 
wdiv I approach you. Would Earth- 
man care for what you call very nice 
little hell-bender at next planet stop? 
It is very exotic w r orld called Ujikee.” 
"Ujikee?” Sundgren scratched his 
head speculatively. The sw r ay of the 
speeding rocketeer’s gvrators rolled 
the massive hull gentlv as lierv stabs 
of disintegrator exhaust shot out- 
ward into the black, star-flaring vista 
of space in the island universe of 
Messier 13. Millions of suns w f ith sev- 
eral thousand planets made this 
great star cluster one of the most 
active in all the list of interplanetary 
rocketeering. No less than four hun- 
dred space-ship routes, officered by 
beings from hundreds of life-spawn- 
ing worlds, plied here and there in 
ceaseless trade. There were men 
from Earth, brogites from the 
fourth Antares planet; lithe, jet 
black zannicans from the massive, 
lone planet of Formalhaut. And still 
others — strange beings with one love 
in common, that of hurtling across 
space in the gigantic trade rockets of 
the universe — w r ere to be found in 
every spaceport ready to sign up for 
another voyage with any crew and 




PLANET LEAVE 



79 



bound for anywhere. Nels Sundgren, 
Earth, was one of these. He alone 
represented the distant System of 
Sol on this present trip and until the 
giant brogite, Xoma, introduced hirm 
self, he had not heard a word of his 
native tongue for many months of 
almost forgotten Earthtime. 

“Never heard of Ujikee,” Sundgren 
muttered. “This is the first time, 
though, that Tve been within a hun- 
dred parcecs of this space area. Any- 
way, Xoma, Pm with you. Tve got 
forty checks of ra to spend — ” 

“No moneys!” Xoma protested. 
“Xoma know Ujikee very well. You 
come along only. I show you. 
Ujikee very much amusing place.” 

At that moment ship-bells rang 
out, causing the big brogite to bid 
hasty goodbye to his new found 
Earthman friend. 

“Work shift signal as you say it.” 
Xoma bowed his ungainly head po- 
litely. “Will see again when all oxy- 
gen breathers land for Ujikee, half 
way through next shift.” 

Sundgren waved cheerfully. There 
was an adventure-hopeful glint to his 
hard blue eyes as he returned to the 
monotonous details of rewinding the 
damaged parsector. He’d met bro- 
gites before. Liked the ugly beasts 
for all their revolting appearance in 
an Earthman’s eyes. Brogites were 
invariably gentle, and stubbornly 
loyal, too. Sundgren puckered his 
unshaven jaw into a whistle. Not 
such a bad contract this time after 
all. Ujikee? Funny name! Might 
be a lot of fun there, too, with Xoma 
the brogite as guide. Just then a 
shrill blast of unintelligible invective 
lashed in his direction. The zanni- 
cans were dancing about on their 
spindly, chitonous legs, hissing at 
him in the peculiar rage of their 
kind. 

“Sorry,” Sundgren grumbled and 



stopped his whistling. “Should have 
known you jumpy black imps of For- 
malhaut couldn’t stand the noise. Oh, 
well!” 

L OWER AIRLOCK resounded 
with a hushed discord of sound. 
The pungency, peculiar to the com- 
mingling of so many and different 
lifeforms, rankled in the nostrils of 
the lone Earthman. He stared at the 
bizarre assembly of beings of all col- 
ors, shapes and sizes, reptilian, in- 
sect and some remotely mammalian, 
without actually seeing them. The 
single-eyed octaped wearing the in- 
signia of a commanding officer, 
waved antennae feverously as he 
manipulated the intraship communi- 
cator which flashed a series of orders 
in fourteen languages. Every space- 
man must have at least two sec- 
ondary languages. Sundgren searched 
the big chart on the wall and found 
he could decipher three of the four- 
teen interpretations, none of which 
even remotely resembled anything 
spoken upon Earth. 

The big airlock portals were swing- 
ing back now. The commanders were 
giving the oxygen breathers a long 
rest here on Ujikee. Sundgren 
found himself tensing with excited 
expectancy. Stepping out upon a to- 
tally strange planet was invariably a 
thrill. It was this anticipation alone 
which made hopeless wanderers of so 
many. Suddenly a heavy paw clapped 
his shoulder. Sundgren jumped, look- 
ing around and up into the fearsome 
face of the brogite. 

“Good oxygen plenty,” Xoma mut- 
tered. “Others go to spaceport for 
drink and such. You come other 
place better, yes?” 

“Any place you say, pal,” and 
Sundgren pushed forward with the 
surging pack, keeping contact with 
the huge-bodied brogite. They were 



80 



COSMIC STORIES 



going beyond the ship now, scurry- 
ing down the ramp to the brownish 
soil. Sundgren stared about with 
slowly awakening interest. Two tiny 
suns illumined a dull, purplish-gray 
world whose peculiar, aromatic at- 
mosphere tickled his throat and 
lungs. Some of the other creatures 
from the massive rocketeer were 
finding the murky air a painful 
shock. There were rasping cries, 
sharp coughs. One pulpous, mottled 
green and gold sluglike being slumped 
into an inert heap even before reach- 
ing the soil of the new planet. 

Sundgren regarded this unfortu- 
nate shipmate with callous indiffer- 
ence. He didn’t know what sort of 
a creature the green and gold slug 
was nor what sort of a world his kind 
might inhabit. 

At a distance there stood a cluster 
of curious buildings seeming to 
spring up in the purplish haze like 
a bed of poisonous mushrooms. That 
would be Ujikee Spaceport and it was 
in this direction that most of the 
bizarre crew trekked. But Xoma, 
clutching Sundgren’s arm, led him 
off in another direction. Vaguely, 
Sundgren recognized this as a me- 
andering path, winding almost hap- 
hazardly through a dark forest of 
grotesque, giant leaved trees. The 
stinging, spicy smell became cloying. 
Sundgren held firmly to Xoma’s 
arms, feeling oddly giddy. 

‘Teel of planet gets you,” Xoma 
explained needlessly. “Always such 
wherever land. All worlds have each 
one a different feel, is not so?” 

“No argument there,” Sundgren 
grumbled. “But where in Hades you 
taking me? We should have stopped 
at Spaceport first anyway. Give me 
a mug of kreel or two and I can 
take on anything.” 

“No kreel,” Xoma intoned pleas- 
antly. “No drink like kreel any kind 



on Ujikee. You see why later. Very 
amusing world, Ujikee.” 

“Huh, what’s it good for?” the 
Earthman tried to stare through 
the haze. He drew his breath spar- 
ingly, aware of the spicy burning in 
his throat which had become even 
more aggravating with Xoma’s as- 
surance that no beverages of any 
sort were used by the Ujikee na- 
tives. Already he had begun to re- 
gret this hurried friendship with the 
green monster of Aldebaran despite 
the brogite engineer’s knowledge of 
English. 

“Here, so soon,” Xoma murmured 
and guided Sundgren sharply to the 
left. “Ujikeen city down here. Back 
there just another company space- 
port but here is real Ujikee.” 

ELS SUNDGREN gasped. They 
were standing on the very edge 
of a precipice, and looking down upon 
a vast city of spiralled towers. He 
understood now that the interplane- 
tary spaceport must be situated upon 
a huge plateau. As he stared more 
intently he could make out a constant 
bubbling of hundreds of shimmering 
balloons rising from the depths to 
glide here and there about the curi- 
ous towers. 

“But how do we get down there?” 
Sundgren demanded. “And besides 

“Much patience plus wisdom of 
the brogites,” Xoma replied, bobbing 
his grotesque head to show the gen- 
tility of his levity. “Ujikee planet 
you know is great with universe 
fame for rare perfumes. But watch, 
friend Earthman.” 

Xoma had withdrawn a compact 
little case containing a score of tight- 
ly corked vials. For a moment one 
huge eye closed speculatively as he 
fingered them in order to select the 
one suited for his present purpose. 





PLANET LEAVE 



81 



Carefully removing the cork, Xoma 
wafted the opened vial before them. 
Nels Sundgren stared at the massive 
green brogite with opened mouth. 

'They come. See!” Xoma pointed 
downward toward the tower city in 
the purple valley. Straight toward 
them now came sailing an entire fleet 
of the scintillating balloons. Sund- 
gren groaned a curse, instinctively 
bracing himself and resting a hand 
on the brogite. 

"Those balls — they’re alive! They 
got hair on one end and — and feet. 
Why, they’re birds!” 

"Right,” Xoma exulted as he 
quickly replaced the vial, substitut- 
ing for it still another. "Almost so, 
should I correct you, Earthman ? 
Ujikeens very marvelous to smell.” 
"You mean that bottle of stuff — ” 
"Assuring,” Xoma sucked in his 
breath sharply. "They smell of a 
fine keenness. But now, only watch 
and do as told. We will visit Ujikee 
such as back in Spaceport they can- 
not know them.” 

"Well,” Sundgren muttered in con- 
fusion. "You’ve been here before. 
But I might have known this was a 
screwy world or there’d be at least 
one Ujikeen spaceman aboard a liner 
that made a regular stop here.” 

But the green brogite was not lis- 
tening. Deftly uncorking the second 
vial, he gestured with it significantly. 
Immediately the two were surround- 
ed by the curious balls. As the sin- 
gular creatures settled to the ground 
upon the tiny feet Sundgren ob- 
served that they were nearly as tall 
as the big brogite. Yet there was no 
face, no eyes nor mouth. Only a 
tuft of wiry hair at the opposite di- 
ameter of the spherical body from 
the tiny feet. The shimmering bodies 
. were subtly pulsating with some curi- 
ous system of metabolism beyond the 
imagination of even such a wanderer 



of the void as Nels Sundgren. But 
what was the brogite doing with that 
silly looking box of vials? And how 
did the big green monster think to 
communicate with this flock of ani- 
mated soap bubbles? 

However, before he could question 
Xoma the bulbous Ujikees suddenly 
converged into a single mass. Xoma 
quickly lifted the astounded Earth- 
man bodily, placing him atop the 
cushioning mass and then clambered 
up beside him. At once they began 
floating down. The sharp hiss of es- 
caping air was the only sound made. 

"Very fine, no?” Xoma spread his 
great arms in a gesture to include the 
entire valley. "See up. Spaceport on 
mountain.” 

Sundgren looked back up. The 
cliffside rose a sheer thousand feet or 
more from the topmost spire, and in 
the hazy atmosphere there was no 
sign of a roadway by which they 
might return. Abruptly the descent 
was halted. They were standing in 
a sort of public square about which 
rose the strange towers like gaunt, 
unadorned pillars about which spiral 
ramps had been attached. Here and 
there tiny holes opened into a tower 
but nowhere was there an aperture 
anywhere near wide enough to ad- 
mit a portly bladder being. The air 
down here, though markedly clearer, 
was heavy with a musty stench, 
which was far less acceptable than 
the spicy aroma of the higher alti- 
tude. 

"Must be quick,” Xoma’s voice was 
lowered. "These people very dogged. 
Want more that fine smell.” 

"You mean the odor from those 
bottles attracted them? Is that why 
they carried us down here?” 

"Sharply pertinent, Earthman,” 
Xoma continued. "Now must lose 
bladder being. I run. You follow. 
Much fun. See ?” 



82 



COSMIC STORIES 



OMA was surprisingly agile. He 
seemed to be heading straight 
toward the center of this queer tower 
city while behind them, evidently be- 
wildered, the living spheres bobbled 
up and down in a desperate but futile 
effort to catch the strange intruders. 
Sundgren was relieved to note that 
the Ujikeen bladder beings could 
move about the surface only with 
difficulty. It was also clear that they 
had but a limited amount of intelli- 
gence. 

But Xoma had evidently arrived 
at his goal. He was examining each 
tower intently, finally coming upon 
one which possessed an opening large 
enough to admit his body. 

Inside was a large, circular room, 
moist and rich with a honeyed fra- 
grance. Sundgren blinked, adjusting 
his eyes to the soft light which 
seemed to emanate from the shell-like 
stuff of the walls. They were in the 
middle of a lush growth of velvet- 
soft plant-like bodies. Long and nar- 
row leaves extended from squat 
bushes. Upon a flower-like stalk in 
the center of each bush there grew 
a curiously mottled ball. 

Xoma was snapping the stems and 
biting into the strange balls avidly, 
pausing only long enough to motion 
that the Earthman was to do the 
same. Sundgren hesitated only a 
moment. After the first bite he felt 
a tingling sense of elation. He 
grinned knowingly. Hadn’t he always 
known these big ugly brogites were 
smart? A dinner of this crazy fruit 
and they'd both have a jag on that 
would lay them out for the next ten 
parsecs. 

Finally Xoma stopped him. “So 
much!” the brogite warned. “Go to 
head quick. Very fine, no?” 

“Never heard of such stuff,” Sund- 
gren agreed. “But how is it there 
was no mention of it on the ship? 



Why, if these dodos were halfway 
smart they’d clean up a journey’s 
wages selling — ” 

“No, no! Ujikee very upset. Come."' 

Reluctantly the Earthman followed 
the brogite. Nels Sundgren was just 
beginning to feel expansive. The 
spaceship and duty were remote re- 
alities. This was a beautiful if som- 
ber world. Outside again the two 
ran swiftly. Sundgren was panting 
in his effort to keep up with Xoma. 
There was something amiss, too, be- 
cause Xoma was taking precautions 
to avoid the Ujikeens. 

“Very upset,” Xoma finally ex- 
plained. “Ujikeens grow bush in tow- 
ers. Rich smell exude through holes 
and are breathed by Ujikeens for 
lifestuff. No drink, no eat, only 
smell, see?” 

“You mean all these puff balls do 
is smell?” 

“Right! Puff is full of air which 
goes in and comes out of bladder 
skin. Such explains clearness of air 
down here.” 

“I see,” Sundgren mumbled. “But 
what are we running for?” 

“Ujikeen smell us. Smell flower 
stuff from breath. Earthman, run!” 

Sundgren glanced up as the bro- 
gite yelled. To his terror he saw the 
sky suddenly fill with hundreds of 
the queer bladder beings. His own 
mouth gaped to shriek out, yet be- 
fore the sound could escape his 
throat a mass of rubbery stuff 
pressed down upon him. Sundgren 
struck blindly. It was like fighting 
a milling, choking mass of balloons. 
The soft rubbery stuff slid over his 
hands and face and seemingly tried 
to strangle him by clamping over his 
nose and mouth. The air was sucked 
out of his lungs. A burning pain 
throbbed in his chest. He gasped, 
choked, and finally pried two fingers 
between the smothering bladder and 



PLANET LEAVE 



83 



his mouth. He sucked madly for air. 
His ears were ringing now. He want- 
ed to cry out to Xoma but could do 
no more than moan as he exhaled. 

Yet he could breathe now. Sanity 
returned. He groped to his feet, 
pushing and stabbing at the bulbous 
masses. His one thought was to get 
away. Striking out with the one 
hand, he kicked viciously at the 
pressing bladders, gaining a tiny 
clearance. Like one possessed, he 
hurled himself forward. His charg- 
ing body caused the near weightless 
bladder beings to bound like huge 
balloons. Once he fancied he heard 
Xoma's cry and plowed on deter- 
minedly in what he thought was the 
direction of the sound. Then sud- 
denly he found himself amidst dense, 
low-growing shrubbery. For a mo- 
ment the bouncing, surging bladder 
beings were at a disadvantage. Sund- 
gren threw himself into the shrub, 
clawing and running until his mus- 
cles, accustomed for so long to the 
gentle artificial gravity of a rock- 
eteer, ached almost beyond endur- 
ance. 

M E HAD eluded the bladder be- 
ings. They could not very well 
penetrate the dark, musty shrub 
area, he concluded. Sundgren, wiping 
the sweat from his face, stood up 
cautiously, straining his ears for the 
slightest sound in this deathly quiet 
world. His voice seemed thunderous 
as he shouted Xoma's name. 

Not until he had shouted several 
times and received no reply did he 
begin to become uneasy. This was a 
strangely soundless world, without 

voice or even the chirp of an insect. 
Xoma should have heard. A sharp 
sting of fear got him now. Perhaps 
the big brogite hadn't been as lucky 
as the Earthman. Xoma might have 



been smothered by those aroma- 
crazed bladder beings. 

Sundgren stalked cautiously in 
what he thought was the direction 
of the queer bladder beings' city, 
keeping well in the protective shel- 
ter of the low-growing shrub. Once 
he glanced skyward and was dis- 
tressed to see but one sun in that 
purplish black sky. He called again. 

The shrubbery suddenly merged 
into a grove of tree-like growths — 
whose tall, whitish stalks were bar- 
ren of limbs for thirty feet. There 
they formed a profusion of cluster- 
ing flower masses. A heady, nauseat- 
ing odor pervaded the dark, ominous- 
ly still cavern of tree trunks. 

Nels Sundgren halted. He was lost 
and recognized the fact without a 
great deal of panic. He had spent 
too many days and nights upon dis- 
tant, eerie worlds to be easily fright- 
ened. Yet he did feel a sharp pang 
of concern for the big brogite. Xoma, 
he was thinking, was a wonderfully 
intelligent friend and above all else 
spoke English. That was something. 
Vaguely, Sundgren was aware of a 
half-formed decision to sign up for a 
Sol-bound liner upon the very next 
opportunity. It wasn't that he cared 
particularly for the company of men. 
He knew a dozen different creatures 
just as companionable. But the good, 
wholesome sound of English words — 
suddenly Sundgren let out a cry ! 
Something like the lash of a whip 
had stunned him sharply on the fore- 
head. 

Sundgren jumped back, one fist 
clenched and the other lifted defen- 
sively before his face. In the pur- 
plish gloom he saw the huge, spinous 
bush whose long, sensitive stalks 
quivered like the antennae upon a 
monster ant-man of the fourth Cen- 
tauri planet. But this was just a 
bush. Sundgren grinned with relief 



84 



COSMIC STORIES 



and approached it with the idea of 
tearing off a good-sized stick to use 
as a poke against the bladder beings. 
Yet as soon as his hand gripped a 
stalk the entire plant quivered. There 
came a sudden, sharp poof! Sund- 
gren drew back, closing his eyes 
tight against the stinging vapor. The 
noxious stench momentarily sickened 
him. He was gasping for breath, 
clearing his throat and trying vainly 
to spit out the offensive taste. But 
now the tree-like growths were be- 
coming strangely activated. 'The flex- 
ible trunks swept down and the 
flower masses swept over him, slimy 
tendrils clutching tight to hair, skin 
and clothing. 

Tearing at the succulent growths 
which suddenly fought to smother 
him, the terrified Earthman strug- 
gled away from the scent-maddened 
trees. His face felt raw. Trickles of 
blood formed beneath clutching ten- 
drils. Again and again he ripped the 
flower masses away from his face. 
Weak and panting for breath he 
scrambled down among the shrubs 
again. The madness of Ujikee was 
beyond all reasoning. It seemed that 
the entire planet lived upon odors, 
was moved to action by certain 
smells. Now, and possibly too late, 
he understood that case of vials 
which Xoma had brought along. 
With smells you could do anything 
here on Ujikee. But you had to have 
the right smells. Sundgren laughed 
aloud, a little madly he recognized, as 
his voice reverberated in his ears 
against that awful soundlessness of 
this queer world. Xoma, he mumbled 
aloud. He must find Xoma. 

The darkness of the weird Ujikeen 
night was broken by the ruddy glow 
of a huge moon. Long, ominously 
silent shadows stretched over the 
valley. The Earthman, creeping for- 
ward cautiously, fought the fatigue 



of combined nervous shock and hun- 
ger. The exhilarating effect of the 
bulb fruit from the bladder beings' 
towers had worn off. Far ahead of 
him, doubtlessly several miles dis- 
tant, he could see the sharp outline 
of the mountain plateau. But in be- 
tween was the tower city of the blad- 
der beings. There was, so far as he 
knew, no way to climb up that steep 
precipice. 

Besides, he could not return with- 
out the brogite! The loyalty of cul- 
ture was as real as the instinctive 
loyalty of race. Xoma was certainly 
not a man and yet the huge green 
monster was undeniably something 
possessing the status and the dignity 
of a human being. 

'‘Xoma!" he called again, standing 
erect and keeping an alert eye for 
either bladder beings or some 
strange growth which might find his 
odorous person irresistible. There 
came the faint rustle of a footfall 
somewhere in the darkness behind 
him. Sundgren tensed. His voice be- 
came low-pitched, defiantly firm. 
“Xoma, is that you?” 

There were other padding, rustling, 
almost feathery sounds now. The 
Earthman steeled his nerves as he 
strained to peer into the gloom. His 
brain functioned with remarkable 
clarity. Was not Ujikee supposed to 
be virtually without animal life? He 
was sure now that Xoma had said 
as much, or at any rate the brogite 
had implied that the bladder beings 
were the dominant lifeform here. 
Possibly this was a search party 
from the spaceship come to locate 
the two oxygen-breathers who had 
failed to appear at the company rec- 
reation building. But this was un- 
likely. Upon such planets as Ujikee 
they never checked up until ship- 
bells' sound prior to take-off. 

Sundgren raised his voice. He 



PLANET LEAVE 



85 



racked his brain for greetings in 
every language he knew. Hissed the 
Ismusan for “Who goes there ?” 
Tried the widely known clacking 
sounds of the slug-like creatures 
from the blue planet of the tri-sun 
system in Messier 13. This was the 
official language of the company for 
which he now worked. But there was 
no response save the increased pad 
and scrape of invisible feet. 

H E STARTED to back away from 
the sounds. Then something 
entangled his legs. Sundgren pitched 
headlong, flailing his arms. Yet he 
couldn't get up. Long, rope-like 
things twisted about his body, wrap- 
ping tightly around his arms and 
legs. Bird-like claws scratched and 
tightened upon his mesh-metal serv- 
ice uniform. Blind w r ith terror, Sund- 
gren twisted, turned, heaved his 
body. The bands, like sleek, muscular 
tentacles, only grew more taut. He 
felt the brush of stiff wiry masses 
of hair sweep across his face. 

He was moving now. Only inches 
above the ground, he felt his body 
being moved forward as though 
borne by a hundred dwarfish things 
of prodigious strength. A sickeningly 
sweet odor filled his gasping lungs. 
But he could see a little. The roseate 
moonlight was falling full upon a 
clearing. Sundgren summoned all his 
strength, lifting his head barely an 
inch. 

The ludicrous spectacle made his 
body chill with horror. Queer rope- 
like things with tiny feet on one end 
and stiff metallic tufts of hair on the 
other were wrapped about him till 
he could not move. But those feet — 
and the tufts of hair! Involuntarily 
he cried out. The bladder beings, 
completely deflated, had stolen upon 
him in the darkness. Their bulbous 
bodies, now stretched into the rub- 



bery likeness of an empty balloon, 
were wound about him. The under- 
part of his prone body seemed alive 
with masses of tiny feet which 
marched steadily along with the per- 
fect rhythm of a single entity. He 
saw the tower city. They were ap- 
proaching an immense building. 

There were none of the exotic 
plants growing in the great circular 
hall. Sundgren felt himself moved to 
the spot near the center. He waited 
expectantly. Would the deflated be- 
ings unwind themselves now? Curi- 
ously, they had halted. Suddenly he 
saw a coiled bladder mass approach- 
ing. The stiff tuft of hair quivered. 
The creature suddenly stiffened upon 
its absurdly tiny feet and then the 
flat bladder shot upward like a strik- 
ing snake. There came the hissing 
rush of air in regular pulsations as 
the bladder being puffed itself into 
a giant, living sphere. Sundgren tried 
to squirm away from the oval 
smoothness of that shimmering ball. 
The horror of choking film charged 
his muscles with renewed fury. 

But the inflated monster had 
bounded back. From those quick, 
excited pulsations of the body Sund- 
gren knew that something was 
wrong. The bladder being was obvi- 
ously bewildered. Now the thing 
bent over. The brush-like tuft of 
hair quivered as it barely touched 
the Earthman’s scratched and bleed- 
ing face. Again the thing retreated. 
It seemed to be issuing forth some 
soundless cry to those which held 
the prisoner, for almost immediately 
the bands of deflated bladder were 
loosened. Sundgren groped to his 
feet dazedly. The bladder men sprang 
up about him, and the chamber be- 
came for the moment shrill with 
their pulsating intakes of air. 

Nels Sundgren thought swiftly. 
Something about him had suddenly 





86 



COSMIC STORIES 



nauseated the aroma-sensitive blad- 
der beings. It was either the essence 
from the strange spinous bush .or 
else — he laughed softly at the 
thought — or else it was the smell of 
human blood! 

With reckless desperation he 
rubbed one hand across his bleeding 
face and quickly smeared the near- 
est bladder. The being jumped, its 
heaving sides sending out sharp, 
quivering whistles of air. Instantly 
there came a rush of air as the other 
beings deflated and hastily scurried 
from the room. Nels Sundgren 
shouted with the ferocious triumph 
of a conquering Viking, his blue eyes 
flashing and his blond hair standing 
awry upon his head. 

Then the cry died out sharply. 
Sundgren held his breath. Listened! 
That shout of defiance had aroused 
another voice. The Earthman rushed 
to an opening, staring here and there 
in the dim, moonlit night. 

“Xoma!” he screamed. 

“Here,” a voice returned from a 
tower near the very edge of the city. 
“My Earth friend, to you it is greet- 
ings.” There followed a babble in the 
speech of the brogites which, despite 
the fact he could not understand one 
word of it, Nels Sundgren knew to 
be a song of hilarity. 

He squirmed through a narrow 
hole into the distant tower. A mo- 
mentary flash of angry resentment 
coursed through his stout body, for 
there, lying amid the crushed bushes 
of the precious nectar-bulbs, was the 
gigantic green hulk of Xoma the 
brogite. 

“You drunken green ape!” Sund- 
gren charged forward but being no 
match for the brogite giant the 
scuffle was soon ended. Now Xoma 
stumbled awkwardly to his feet. 

“Earthman,” the huge monster's 
voice was ridiculously plaintive. “So 



sorry. Thought to escape. Hide in 
here to await going away of bladder 
beings.” He waved his paws about. 
“Like I warned. Too much. Eat too 
much. Go happy in head. Forget. 
But now will forgive?” 

For an instant Sundgren glared 
into those huge unblinking eyes. 
Then the Earthman grinned under- 
standing^. 

“Can we get back?” 

“Can!” Xoma's gargantuan jaw 
gaped joyously at the forgiveness. 
Jubilantly he displayed his case of 
vials. “Smell crazy beings will take. 
Go back now. First Xoma must drink 
— so.” He swallowed the contents of 
one of the vials. Grimaced. “Breath 
very not pleasant. Understand? 
Now can go. But hold. Must take 
off blood smell Earthman's face. 
Blood smell scare bladders. I fix.” 

ELS SUNDGREN held his 
breath while the cluster of 
eager bladder beings, obeying some 
powerful scent, speedily lifted the 
two intruders to the ledge. Again 
Xoma took out a vial, uncorked it 
and with a gesture of generosity 
sprinkled it upon the milling balloon 
masses. 

“Farewell, puffies,” he sighed, still 
obviously elated by the quantity of 
bulbs he had eaten. Then throwing 
a great green arm about the Earth- 
man he pointed into the misty dis- 
tance. “Very fine fun, yes? We go 
on fine bender again come to oxygen 
planet? Some day, Earthman, I think 
to go to Sol System. Sign up for big 
contract go to Earth. Maybe go to 
place called New York. What think, 
Earthman?” 

“Oh, sure,” Sundgren answered ab- 
sentmindedly. “But this next oxygen- 
planet stop. What sort of a place is 
it, Xoma?” 





THE SECRET SENSE 



Jui 9d&ac /Idimov 



(Author of “Homo Sol/* “Trends/* etc.) 




U ^NNK?' iS r Jfc 



Ths Martians couldn't tast® and their hearing was bad, but they had a secret sense all 

of their own. 



T HE LILTING strains of a 
Strauss waltz filled the room. 
The music waxed and waned 

beneath the sensitive fingers of Lin- 
coln Fields, and through half-closed 
eyes he could almost see whirling 



figures pirouetting about the waxed 
floor of some luxurious salon. 

Music always affected him that 
way. It filled his mind with dreams 
of sheer beauty and transformed his 
room into a paradise of sound. His 



87 








88 



COSMIC STORIES 



hands flickered over the piano in the 
last delicious combinations of tones 
and then slowed reluctantly to a halt. 

He sighed and for a moment re- 
mained absolutely silent as if trying 
to extract the last essence of beauty 
from the dying echoes. Then he 
turned and smiled faintly at the 
other occupant of the room. 

Garth Jan smiled in turn but said 
nothing. Garth had a great liking 
for Lincoln Fields, though little un- 
derstanding. They were worlds 
apart — literally — for Garth hailed 
from the giant underground cities of 
Mars while Fields was the product 
of sprawling Terrestrial New York. 

“How was that, Garth, old fellow ?” 
questioned Fields doubtfully. 

Garth shook his head. He spoke in 
his precise, painstaking manner, “I 
listened attentively and can truly say 
that it was not unpleasant. There is 
a certain rhythm, a cadence of sorts, 
which, indeed, is rather soothing. 
But beautiful? No!” 

There was pity in Fields' eyes — 
pity almost painful in its intensity. 
The Martian met the gaze and under- 
stood all that it meant, yet there was 
no answering spark of envy. His 
bony giant figure remained doubled 
up in a chair that was too small for 
him and one thin leg swung leisurely 
back and forth. 

Fields lunged out of his seat im- 
petuously and grasped his companion 
by the arm. “Here! Seat yourself 
on the bench.” 

Garth obeyed genially. “I see you 
want to carry out some little experi- 
ment.” 

“You've guessed it. I've read sci- 
entific works which tried to explain 
all about the difference in sense - 
equipment between Earthman and 
Martian, but I never could quite 
grasp it all.” 

He tapped the notes C and F in a 



single octave and glanced at the Mar- 
tian inquiringly. 

“If there's a difference,” said 
Garth doubtfully, “it's a very slight 
one. If I were listening casually, I 
would certainly say you had hit the 
same note twice.” 

The Earthman marvelled. “How's 
this?” He tapped C and G. 

“I can hear the difference this 
time.” 

“Well, I suppose all they say about 
your people is true. You poor fellows 
— to have such a crude sense of hear- 
ing. You don't know what you're 
missing.” 

The Martian shrugged his shoul- 
ders fatalistically. “One misses noth- 
ing that one has never possessed.” 
Garth Jan broke the short silence 
that followed. “Do you realize that 
this period of history is the first in 
which two intelligent races have been 
able to communicate with each other? 
The comparison of sense equipment 
is highly interesting — and rather 
broadens one's views on life.” 
“That's right,” agreed the Earth- 
man, “though we seem to have all the 
advantage of the comparison. You 
know a Terrestrial biologist stated 
last month that he was amazed that 
a race so poorly equipped in the mat- 
ter of sense-perception could develop 
so high a civilization as yours.” 

“All is relative, Lincoln. What we 
have is sufficient for us.” 

Fields felt a growing frustration 
within him. “But if you only knew , 
Garth, if you only knew what you 
were missing. 

“You've never seen the beauties of 
a sunset or of dancing fields of flow- 
ers. You can't admire the blue of 
the sky, the green of the grass, the 
yellow of ripe com. To you the world 
consists of shades of dark and light.” 
He shuddered at the thought. “You 
can't smell a flower or appreciate its 



THE SECRET SENSE 



89 



delicate perfume. You can’t even en- 
joy such a simple thing as a good, 
hearty meal. You can’t taste nor 
smell nor see color. I pity you for 
your drab world.” 

“What you say is meaningless, 
Lincoln. Waste no pity on me, for 
I am as happy as you.” He rose and 
reached for his cane — necessary in 
the greater gravitational field of 
Earth. 

“You must not judge us with such 
easy superiority, you know.” That 
seemed to be the galling aspect of 
the matter. “We do not boast of 
certain accomplishments of our race 
of which you know nothing.” 

And then, as if heartily regretting 
his words, a wry grimace overspread 
his face, and he started for he door. 

F IELDS sat puzzled and thought- 
ful for a moment, then jumped 
up and ran after the Martian who 
was stumping his way towards the 
exit. He gripped Garth by the 
shoulder and insisted that he return. 

“What did you mean by that last 
remark?” 

The Martian turned his face away 
as if unable to face his questioner. 
“Forget it, Lincoln. That was just 
a moment of indiscretion when your 
unsolicited pity got on my nerves.” 
Fields gave him a sharp glance. 
“It’s true, isn’t it? It’s logical that 
Martians possess senses Earthmen do 
not, but it passes the bounds of rea- 
son that your people should want to 
keep it secret.” 

“That is as it may be. But now 
that you’ve found me out through my 
own utter stupidity, you will perhaps 
agree to let it go no further?” 

“Of course ! I’ll be as secret as the 
grave, though I’m darned if I can 
make anything of it. Tell me, of 
what nature is this secret sense of 

yours?” 



Garth Jan shrugged listlessly. 
“How can I explain? Can you define 
color to me, who cannot even con- 
ceive it?” 

“I’m not asking for a definition. 
Tell me its uses. Please,” he gripped 
the other’s shoulder, “you might as 
well. I have given my promise of 
secrecy.” 

The Martian sighed heavily. “It 
won’t do you much good. Would it 
satisfy you to know that if you were 
to show me two containers," each 
filled with a clear liquid, I could tell 
you at once whether either of the 
two were poisonous? Or, if you were 
to show me a copper wire, I could tell 
instantly whether an electric current 
were passing through it, even if it 
were as little as a thousandth of an 
ampere. Or I could tell you the tem- 
perature of any substance within 
three degrees of the true va'lue even 
if you held it as much as five yards 
away. Or I could — well, I’ve said 
enough.” 

“Is that all?” demanded Fields, 
with a disappointed cry. 

“What more do you wish?” 

“All you’ve described is very use- 
ful — but where is the beauty in it? 
Has this strange sense of yours no 
value to the spirit as well as to the 
body?” 

Garth Jan made an impatient 
movement. “Really, Lincoln, you 
talk foolishly. I have given you only 
that for which you asked — the uses I 
put this sense to. I certainly didn’t 
attempt to explain its nature. Take 
your color sense. As far as I can 
see its only use is in making certain 
fine distinctions which I cannot. You 
can identify certain chemical solu- 
tions, for instance, by something you 
call color when I would be forced to 
run a chemical analysis. Where’s the 
beauty in that?” 

Field opened his mouth to speak 




90 



COSMIC STORIES 



but the Martian motioned him testily 
into silence. “I know. You're going 
to babble foolishness about sunsets or 
something. But what do you know 
of beauty? Have you ever known 
what it was to witness the beauty of 
the naked copper wires when an AC 
current is turned on? Have you 
sensed the delicate loveliness of in- 
duced currents set up in a solenoid 
when a magnet is passed through it? 
Have you ever attended a Martian 
portivem ?” 

Garth Jan's eyes had grown misty 
with the thoughts he was conjuring 
up, and Fields stared in utter amaze- 
ment. The shoe was on the other 
foot now and his sense of superiority 
left him of a sudden. 

“Every race has its own attri- 
butes," he mumbled with a fatalism 
that had just a trace of hypocrisy in 
it, “but I see no reason why you 
should keep it such a blasted secret. 
We Earthmen have kept no secrets 
from your race." 

“Don't accuse us of ingratitude," 
cried Garth Jan vehemently. Accord- 
ing to the Martian code of ethics, in- 
gratitude was the supreme vice, and 
at the insinuation of that Garth's 
caution left him. “We never act with- 
out reason, we Martians. And cer- 
tainly it is not for our own sake 
that we hide this magnificent abil- 
ity." 

The Earthman smiled mockingly. 
He was on the trail of something — he 
felt it in his bones — and the only way 
to get it out was to tease it out. 

“No doubt there is some nobility 
behind it all. It is a strange attribute 
of your race that you can always find 
some altruistic motive for your ac- 
tions." 

G ARTH JAN bit his lip angrily. 

“You have no right to say 
that." For a moment he thought of 



pleading worry over Fields' future 
peace of mind as a reason for silence, 
but the latter's mocking reference to 
“altruism" had rendered that impos- 
sible. A feeling of anger crept over 
him gradually and that forced him to 
his decision. 

There was no mistaking the note 
of frigid unfriendliness that entered 
his voice. “I'll explain by analogy." 
The Martian stared straight ahead of 
him as he spoke, eyes half-closed. 

“You have told me that I live in 
a world that is composed merely of 
shades of light and dark. You try 
to describe a world of your own com- 
posed of infinite variety and beauty. 
I listen but care little concerning it. 
I have never known it and never can 
know it. One does not weep over the 
loss of what one has never owned. 

“But — what if you were able to 
give me the ability to see color for 
five minutes? What if, for five min- 
utes, I reveled in wonders undreamed 
of ? What if, after those five minutes, 
I have to return it forever? Would 
those five minutes of paradise be 
worth a lifetime of regret afterwards 
— a lifetime of dissatisfaction be- 
cause of my own shortcomings ? 
Would it not have been the kinder act 
never to have told me of color in the 
first place and so have removed its 
ever-present temptation ?" 

Fields had risen to his feet during 
the last part of the Martian's speech 
and his eyes opened wide in a wild 
surmise. “Do you mean an Earthman 
can possess the Martian sense if so 
desired?" 

“For five minutes in a lifetime," 
Garth Jan's eyes grew dreamy, “and 
in those five minutes sense " 

He came to a confused halt and 
glared angrily at his companion, 
“You know more than is good for 



92 



COSMIC STORIES 



— by your own ethics. You owe me 
gratitude, now, because it was 
through me you gained entrance into 
the houses of the greatest and most 
honorable men of Earth.” 

“I know that,” Garth Jan flushed 
angrily. “You are impolite to remind 
me of it.” 

“I have no choice. You acknowl- 
edged the gratitude you owe me in 
actual words, back on Earth. I de- 
mand the chance to possess this mys- 
terious sense you keep so secret — in 
the name of this acknowledged grat- 
itude. Can you refuse now?” 

“You know I can’t,” was the 
gloomy response. “I hesitated only 
for your own sake.” 

The Martian rose and held out his 
hand gravely, “You have me by the 
neck, Lincoln. It is done. After- 
wards, though, I owe you nothing 
more. This will pay my debt of 
gratitude. Agreed ?” 

“Agreed!” The two shook hands 
and Lincoln Fields continued in an 
entirely different tone. “We’re still 
friends, though, aren’t we? This little 
altercation won’t spoil things?” 

“I hope not. Come! Join me at 
the evening meal and we can discuss 
the time and place of your — er — five 
minutes.” 

Lincoln Fields tried hard to down 
the faint nervousness that filled him 
as he waited in Garth Jan’s private 
“concert”-room. He felt a sudden de- 
sire to laugh as the thought came to 
him that he felt exactly as he usually 
did in a dentist’s waiting room. 

He lit his tenth cigarette, puffed 
twice and threw it away, “You’re do- 
ing this very elaborately, Garth.” 

The Martian shrugged, “You have 
only five minutes so I might as well 
see to it that they are put to the 
best possible use. You’re going to 
‘hear’ part of a portwem which is to 



our sense what a great symphony (is 
that the word?) is to sound.” 

“Have we much longer to wait? 
The suspense, to be trite, is terrible.” 

“We’re waiting for Novi Lon, who 
is to play the portwem , and for Done 
Vol, my private physician. They’ll be 
along soon.” 

Fields w 7 andered on to the low dais 
that occupied the center of the room 
and regarded the intricate mechan- 
ism thereupon w T ith curious interest. 
The fore-part was encased in gleam- 
ing aluminum leaving exposed only 
seven tiers of shining black knobs 
above and five large white pedals be- 
low. Behind, however, it lay open and 
within there ran crossings and re- 
crossings of fine wires in incredibly 
complicated paths. 

“A curious thing, this,” remarked 
the Earthman. 

The Martian joined him on the 
dais, “It’s an expensive instrument. 
It cost me ten thousand Martian 
credits.” 

“How does it work?” 

“Not so differently from a Ter- 
restrial piano. Each of the upper 
knobs controls a different electric cir- 
cuit. Singly and together an expert 
portwem player could, by manipulat- 
ing the knobs, form any conceivable 
pattern of electric current. The pedals 
below control the strength of the cur- 
rent.” 

Fields nodded absently and ran his 
fingers over the knobs at random. 
Idly, he noticed the small galvanom- 
eter located just above the keys 
kick violently each time he depressed 
a knob. Aside from that, he sensed 
nothing. 

“Is the instrument really playing?” 

The Martian smiled, “Yes, it is. 
And a set of unbelievably atrocious 
discords too.” 

He took a seat before the instru- 
ment and with a murmured “Here’s 




THE SECRET SENSE 



91 



you. See that you don’t forget your 
promise.” 

He rose hastily and hobbled away 
as quickly as he could, leaning heavily 
upon the cane. Lincoln Fields made 
no move to stop him. He merely sat 
there and thought. 

* r H^HE GREAT height of the cavern 
shrouded the roof in misty ob- 
scurity in which, at fixed intervals, 
there floated luminescent globes of 
radite. The air, heated by this sub- 
terranean volcanic stratum, wafted 
past gently. Before Lincoln Fields 
stretched the wide, paved avenue of 
the principal city of Mars, fading 
away into the distance. 

He clumped awkwardly up to the 
entrance of the home of Garth Jan, 
the six-inch-thick layer of lead at- 
tached to each shoe a nuisance un- 
ending. Though it was still better 
than the uncontrollable bounding 
Earth muscles brought about in this 
lighter gravity. 

The Martian was surprised to see 
his friend of six months ago but not 
altogether joyful. Fields was not 
slow to notice this but he merely 
smiled to himself. The opening for- 
malities passed, the conventional re- 
marks were made, and the two seated 
themselves. 

Fields crushed the cigarette in the 
ash-tray and sat upright suddenly se- 
rious. “I’ve come to ask for those 
five minutes you claim you can give 
me! May I have them?” 

“Is that a rhetorical question? It 
certainly doesn’t seem to require an 
answer.” Garth’s tone was openly 
contemptuous. 

The Earthman considered the 
other thoughtfully. “Do you mind if 
I outline my position in a few 
words?” 

The Martian smiled indifferently. 



“It won’t make any difference,” he 
said. 

“I’ll take my chance on that. The 
situation is this: I've been born and 
reared in the lap of luxury and have 
been most disgustingly spoiled. I’ve 
never yet had a reasonable desire 
that I have not been able to fulfill, 
and I don’t know what it means not 
to get what I want. Do you see?” 
There was no answer and he con- 
tinued, “I have found my happiness 
in beautiful sights, beautiful words, 
and beautiful sounds. I have made 
a cult of beauty. In a word, I am an 
aesthete.” 

“Most interesting,” the Martian’s 
stony expression did not change a 
whit, “but what bearing has all this 
on the problem at hand?” 

“Just this: You speak of a new 
form of beauty — a form unknown to 
me at present and entirely inconceiv- 
able even, but one which could be 
known if you so wished. The notion 
attracts me. It more than attracts 
me — it makes its demands of me. 
Again I remind you that when a no- 
tion begins to make demands of me, 
I yield — I always have.” 

“You are not the master in this 
case,” reminded Garth Jan. “It is 
crude of me to remind you of this, 
but you cannot force me, you know. 
Your words, in fact, are almost offen- 
sive in their implications.” 

“I am glad you said that, for it 
allows me to be crude in my turn 
without offending my conscience.” 
Garth Jan’s only reply to this was 
a self-confident grimace. 

“I make my demand of you,” said 
Fields, slowly, “in the name of grat- 
itude.” 

“Gratitude?” the Martian started 
violently. 

Fields grinned broadly, “It’s an ap- 
peal no honorable Martian can refuse 



THE SECRET SENSE 



93 



how!” his fingers skimmed rapidly 
and accurately over the gleaming but- 
tons. 

The sound of a reedy Martian voice 
crying out in strident accents broke 
in upon him, and Garth Jan ceased 
in sudden embarrassment. “This is 
Novi Lon,” he said hastily to Fields, 
“As usual he does not like my play- 
ing.” 

Fields rose to meet the newcomer. 
He was bent of shoulder and evident- 
ly of great age. A fine tracing of 
wrinkles, especially about eyes and 
mouth, covered his face. 

“So this is the young Earthman,” 
he cried, in strongly-accented Eng- 
lish. “I disapprove your rashness but 
sympathize with your desire to at- 
tend a portwem. It is a great pity 
you can own our sense for no more 
than five minutes. Without it no one 
can truly be said to live.” 

Garth Jan laughed, “He exagger- 
ates, Lincoln. He's one of the great- 
est musicians of Mars, and thinks 
anyone doomed to damnation who 
would not rather attend a portwem 
than breathe.” He hugged the older 
man warmly, “He was my teacher in 
my youth and many were the long 
hours in which he struggled to teach 

0 

me the proper combinations of cir- 
cuits.” 

“And I have failed after all, you 
dunce,” snapped the old Martian. “I 
heard your attempt at playing as I 
entered. You still have not learned 
the proper fortgass combination. You 
were desecrating the soul of the great 
Bar Danin. My pupil! Bah! It is a 
disgrace!” 

The entrance of the third Martian, 
Done Vol, prevented Novi Lon from 
continuing his tirade. Garth, glad of 
the reprieve, approached the physi- 
cian hastily. 

“Is all ready ?” 

“Yes,” growled Vol surlily, “and a 



particularly uninteresting experiment 
this will be. We know all the re- 
sults beforehand.” His eyes fell upon 
the Earthman, whom he eyed con- 
temptuously. “Is this the one who 
wishes to be inoculated?” 

Lincoln Fields nodded eagerly and 
felt his throat and mouth go dry 
suddenly. He eyed the newcomer un- 
certainly and felt uneasy at the sight 
of a tiny bottle of clear liquid and 
a hypodermic which the physician 
had extracted from a case he was 
carrying. 

“What are you going to do?” he 
demanded. 

“He'll merely inoculate you. It'll 
take a second,” Garth Jan assured 
him. “You see, the sense-organs in 
this case are several groups of cells 
in the cortex of the brain. They are 
activated by a hormone, a synthetic 
preparation of which is used to stim- 
ulate the dormant cells of the occa- 
sional Martian who is born — er — 
'blind.' You'll receive the same 
treatment.” 

“Oh ! — then Earthmen possess 
those cortex cells?” 

“In a very rudimentary state. The 
concentrated hormone will activate 
them, but only for five minutes. 
After that time, they are literally 
blown out as a result of their un- 
wonted activity. After that, they 
can't be re-activated under any cir- 
cumstances.” 

Done Vol completed his last-minute 
preparations and approached Fields. 
Without a word, Fields extended his 
right arm and the hypodermic 
plunged in. 

With the operation completed, the 
Terrestrial waited a moment or two 
and then essayed a shaky laugh, “I 
don't feel any change.” 

“You won't for about ten minutes,” 
explained Garth. “It takes time. 
Just sit back and relax. Novi Lon 



94 



COSMIC STORIES 



has begun Bar Danin’s 'Canals in 
the Desert’ — it is my favorite — and 
when the hormone begins its work 
you will find yourself in the very mid- 
dle of things.” 

Now that the die was cast irrevo- 
cably, Fields found himself stonily 
calm. Novi Lon played furiously and 
Garth Jan, at the Earthman’s right, 
was already lost in the composition. 
Even Done Vol, the fussy doctor, had 
forgotten his peevishness for the 
nonce. 

Fields snickered under his breath. 
The Martians listened attentively but 
to him the room was devoid of sound 
and — almost — of all other sensation 
as well. What — no, it was impos- 
sible, of course — but what if it were 
just an elaborate practical joke. He 
stirred uneasily and put the thought 
from his mind angrily. 

The minutes passed; Novi Lon’s 
fingers flew; Garth Jan’s expression 
was one of unfeigned delight. 

Then Lincoln Fields blinked his 
eyes rapidly. For a moment a nim- 
bus of color seemed to surround the 
musician and his instrument. He 
couldn’t identify it — but it was there. 
It grew and spread until the room 
was full of it. Other hues came to 
join it and still others. They wove 
and wavered; expanding and con- 
tracting; changing with lightning 
speed and yet staying the same. In- 
tricate patterns of brilliant tints 
formed and faded, beating in silent 
bursts of color upon the young man’s 
eyeballs. 

Simultaneously, there came the im- 
pression of sound. From a whisper 
it rose into a glorious, ringing shout 
that wavered up and down the scale 
in quivering tremolos. He seemed to 
hear every instrument from fife to 
bass viol simultaneously, and yet, 
paradoxically, each rang in his ear in 
solitary clearness. 



And together with this, there came 
the more subtle sensation of odor. 
From a suspicion, a mere trace, it 
waxed into a phantasmal field of flow- 
ers. Delicate spicy scents followed 
each other in ever stronger succes- 
sion; in gentle wafts of pleasure. 

Yet all this was nothing. Fields 
knew that. Somehow, he knew that 
what he saw, heard, and smelt were 
mere delusions — mirages of a brain 
that frantically attempted to inter- 
pret an entirely new conception in 
the old, familiar ways. 

Gradually, the colors and the 
sounds and the scents died. His brain 
was beginning to realize that that 
which beat upon it was something 
hitherto unexperienced. The effect 
of the hormone became stronger, and 
suddenly — in one burst — Fields real- 
ized what it was he sensed. 

He didn’t see it — nor hear it — nor 
smell it — nor taste it — nor feel it. He 
knew what it was but he couldn’t 
think of the word for it. Slowly, he' 
realized that there wasn’t any word 
for it. Even more slowly, he realized 
that there wasn’t even any concept 
for it. 

Yet he knew what it was. 

There beat upon his brain some- 
thing that consisted of pure waves of 
enjoyment — something that lifted 
him out of himself and pitched him 
headlong into a universe unknown to 
him earlier. He was falling through 
an endless eternity of — something. 
It wasn’t sound or sight but it was 
— something. Something that en- 
folded him and hid his surroundings 
from him — that’s what it was. It was 
endless and infinite in its variety and 
with each crashing wave, he glimpsed 
a farther horizon, and the wonder- 
ful cloak of sensation became thicker 
— and softer — and more beautiful. 

Then came the discord. Like a lit- 
tle crack at first — marring a perfect 



THE SECRET SENSE 



95 



beauty. Then spreading and branch- 
ing and growing wider, until, finally, 
it split apart thunderously — though 
without a sound. 

Lincoln Fields, dazed and bewil- 
dered, found himself back in the con- 
cert room again. 

He lurched to his feet and grasped 
Garth Jan by the arm violently, 
‘‘Garth! Why did he stop? Tell him 
to continue! Tell him !” 

Garth Jan's startled expression 
faded into pity, “He is still playing, 
Lincoln.” 

The Earthman's befuddled stare 
showed no signs of understanding. 
He gazed about him with unseeing 
eyes. Novi Lon's fingers sped across 
the keyboard as nimbly as ever; the 
expression on his face was as rapt 
as ever. Slowly, the truth seeped in, 
and the Earthman's empty eyes filled 
with horror. 

He sat down, uttering one hoarse 
cry, and buried his head in his hands. 

The five minutes had passed! There 
could be no return! 



Garth Jan was smiling — a smile of 
dreadful malice, “I had pitied you 
just a moment ago, Lncoln, but now 
I’m glad — glad! You forced this out 
of me — you made me do this. I hope 
you're satisfied, because I certainly 
am. For the rest of your life,” his 
voice sank to a sibilant whisper, 
“you'll remember these five minutes 
and know what it is you're missing 
— what it is you can never have 
again. You are blind, Lincoln, — 
blind!” 

The Earthman raised a haggard 
face and grinned, but it was no more 
than a horrible baring of the teeth. 
It took every ounce of will-power he 
possessed to maintain an air of com- 
posure. 

He did not trust himself to speak. 
Wih wavering step, he marched out 
of the room, head held high to the 
end. 

And within, that tiny, bitter voice, 
repeating over and over again, “You 
entered a normal man! You leave 
blind — blind — BLIND.” 



WORLDS MX EXILE 

by Elton V . Andrews 

The sun is dying. Icy Terra's sky 
Turns liquid, freezes, falls in airy snow: 

In voids beyond, where never living eye 
Again shall see them, other planets grow 
Obscure and dark .... The ruddy eye of Mars 
Bright Venus, Jupiter, and all his train 
Are hidden by the gleaming of the stars 
They once outshone .... Impotent, futile, vain, 
The bickering of life they spawned and mourned 
Is silent. Other forms knew life than men 
On their broad bosoms: other forms that scorned 
Man's puny will .... And e’en their Titan spark 
Of years is through, nor may we comprehend 
The Cyclopean meaning of the end. 




THE LAST VIKING 



Juf cMufflt Raymond 



( Author of “He Wasn’t There/’ “The Vanguard /* etc.) 




Johannsohn was detorminod to become a Viking of space, to be the very first space 

pirate. But the year was 2061. 



HE GUARDS weren't far be 
hind and Johannsohn stopped 
a moment behind a great, 
gleaming pillar to rest. His tired 
body folded to the metal floor. Ther 
came the sound of the running feel 
of several uniformed men rising in 



volume, then falling to a mere pat- 
ter. He heard the sound with vague 
interest. 

The fugitive smiled wearily to 
himself. His big eyes, blood-shot, 
closed for an instant. He rubbed his 
aching legs absently. The pain went 



96 






THE LAST VIKING 



97 



unnoticed; he couldn’t feel pain any 
more. All that was over and done 
with. Now there was just an elated 
confusion and somehow his mind was 
clearer than it had been for many 
years. Sitting in the dark with the 
muffled noises of clanking and the 
creak of mighty freight elevators 
piercing the silence, he tried to think. 

He had been free for six hours. 
First there had been the tremendous 
effort of the decision to escape. It 
was not an effort to evade compul- 
sion. In the scientific world of 2061 
there was no compulsion. But he had 
to break decisively with a long past. 
Never before had he thought actually 
to question the logic of that life 
which filtered into his cloudy brain 
through television screens and loud- 
speakers and soothing attendants and 
understanding doctors who spoke to 
him with kindly voices and tremen- 
dous enthusiasm. But the thing 
which had been slowly building up 
for many years finally reached its 
nebulous conclusion. His nurse, for 
an hour, had left him alone on the 
roof of the great hospital. When 
the moment of great decision 
came he simply took the elevator 
down to the street level and walked 
away. He knew, of course, that he 
would be immediately followed and 
accurately traced. Which was pre- 
cisely what happened. For awhile he 
roamed the pretty lanes and boule- 
vards of the far-flung social-complex. 
Then the first exaltation died down 
and his disease took hold grimly. 

There was no doubt that Johann- 
sohn was a diseased man. At first 
he had gotten along well as a sort of 
harmless moron who operated a 
small machine in an obscure factory 
an hour or two a day, then went 
home, ate, slept and prepared for 
another day’s work. But there was 
more behind his bullet head than 



what his fellow workers gave him 
credit for. Johannsohn knew this to 
be a fact because he did things no 
one else ever thought of doing. He 
read very old books. So did everyone 
else, for that matter; but Johann- 
sohn brooded over them. The spirit- 
ual upswing of the modern world 
was a movement totally beyond his 
mental reach. He failed to glimpse 
for an instant the soul of the com- 
plex life of the planet. Civiliza- 
tion was something above Johann- 
sohn; as far as he was concerned 
it represented an easy and inexpli- 
cable way to eat, sleep, work and in- 
dulge in various animal pleasures. 

When he had finally cracked and 
had been taken into custody of the 
proper authorities, the procedure had 
had no effect upon him whatsoever. 
He let himself be taken and examined 
and probed and classified and went 
on brooding. They allowed him to 
read the old books when he wanted 
them. 

Johannsohn didn’t know it but he 
had been pronounced incurable; the 
world was simply ignoring him as 
much as possible and waiting in- 
sensibly for him to die and be put 
out of the way. 

T HE UNIFORMED MEN were 
coming back. He jerked up his 
head sharply and peered around the 
pillar. As soon as they had passed 
he wandered on. For some minutes 
he strolled erratically, this way *nd 
that, then, seized with a sudden in- 
spiration sidled close to the side of 
the great spaceflyer lying in its 
cradle. He caressed the knobby, yel- 
low metal surface and knocked boldly 
on a transparent porthole. Pleased 

by the humming sounds from within 
the ship and those caused by the 
workings of the automatic machinery 





98 



COSMIC STORIES 



about it, he cocked his ear and lis- 
tened acutely, birdlike. 

After a time he crept close to an 
automatic conveyor belt carrying an 
endless stream of large metal tubes 
of helium into an opening in the 
ship's hull far above. Crouching in 
the shadows he watched his chance, 
then, as an empty space on the con- 
veyor swung past, he jumped, 
clutched firmly at the metal flanges, 
drew himself to the empty pit and 
huddled between two large tubes. 

He felt himself born aloft with 
steady, quiet speed. There was a 
moment of giddiness as the belt 
swept downward and around a 
curve, then the light suddenly 
changed from the brilliance of late 
afternoon to the soft darkness of the 
interior of the hull. A huge metal 
claw reached down to clutch at his 
body but he avoided it, wriggling out 
of the tube-pit. He stood up, stepped 
off the belt, and his feet touched the 
floor. The belt disappeared into the 
wall, unheeding. 

Johannsohn knew that no one had 
seen him come aboard. The labor of 
loading and preparing a space flyer 
for flight was entirely automatic. 
Giant machines unloaded the vessels, 
cleaned them, reloaded them, fueled 
and set them into firing position. 
Powered by the might of exploding 
atoms they ran on endlessly, un- 
watched by the eye, untended by the 
hand of man. Occasionallv a ma- 
chine would . break down. Such ac- 
cidents were of no moment. Im- 
mediately, circuits would flash into 
activity, spy-ray beams would focus 
upon delicate dials and a small re- 
pairing machine would spin into life, 
supplying parts and working over the 
damaged sections with mechanical 
hands. 

Spaceports were generally silent 
places inhabited only by the crews of 



ships about to take off into space and 
an occasional calculator or curve- 
plotter who made the initial charts. 
The modern world lived in a super- 
social milieu. Machinery was con- 
sidered a necessary but unavoidably 
unaesthetic adjunct to civilization. 
People kept mostly to the social com- 
plexes and the fields and forests 
where reposed the wells of culture 
and intellectual sustenance. 

The first few moments of absolute 
freedom filled the fugitive with a 
new surge of boundless exhilaration. 
Consciously . he was happy, for per- 
haps the first time in his life. A 
feeling of possession and kinship to- 
ward the vessel seized him. He stared 
about him at the confines of the huge 
storehold where, endlessly, until the 
hour of departure, the loading belt 
swept by, giant metal claws moved 
down and up and higher and higher 
piled the stacks of flat-ended cylin- 
ders. They were loaded with essen- 
tial gases for Martian mining opera- 
tions, but Johannsohn knew nothing 
of that. If he had been told, the 
fact would have shot a thousand 
miles over his head. It would have 
meant nothing to him. 

After a while the little light that 
filtered into the room faded. Night 
had fallen over the outside world. 
Johannsohn didn't mind the dark. He 
rather liked the new sensations of 
feeling unfamiliar objects and not 
knowing what they were or what 
were the secrets they contained. 
Tirelessly his hands wandered over 
the rounded cylinders and caressed 
the rising arm of the unloading ma- 
chine. Suddenly, the metal arm 
stopped, folded back into a metal- 
walled case at the base of the in- 
strument and the whole machine 
moved on noiseless rollers into the 
wall. A scratching on the floor told 
of the passage of the last empty link 



THE LAST VIKING 



99 



of the conveyor belt but Johannsohn 
didn't know that. He scrupulously 
avoided the location of the moving 
chain. When all the noises ceased 
he stopped moving about the room, 
lay down on a vacant expanse of floor 
and went to sleep. 

^■pHE SUDDEN ascent into inter- 
stellar space at the rate of 
twenty miles per second awakened 
the fugitive in a shock of terror. The 
bottom seemed to be dropping out of 
his stomach, out of the room, out of 
his whole world. It took him sev- 
eral minutes to realize what was go- 
ing on but he finally did. Pressure 
on every part of his body rendered 
him completely helpless. He lay 
bound and heard about him the un- 
easy noises of heavy cylinders strain- 
ing to readjust their positions. Sev- 
eral of them clanked noisily out of 
place, rolled into corners and were 
quiet. A sudden fear of being 
crushed overwhelmed him. His heart 
pounded slowly and heavily. Blood 
flowed through his veins sluggishly. 
Great blue whorls of light obliterated 
the blackness in front of his eyes. He 
saw streaks and flashes but they 
were merely the reaction of his ter- 
ribly strained eye muscles. Sudden- 
ly a blood vessel burst in his leg. It 
went cold and numb. A great fog 
of pain engulfed the lower part of 
his body. Sweating profusely he 
tried to shut out the terrible lights, 
close his mind to the pain and the 
terrifying sounds. Consciousness 
lingered on. He became aware of a 
slowly rising heat. The floor of the 
room was becoming hot rapidly. 
Soon the metal was burning through 
his scanty clothing. Great patches 
of his body were aglow with 
intolerable heat. And slowly the 
pressure grew and grew. It con- 
centrated now on his legs and feet 



and he felt himself being dragged 
forward over the floor. The space- 
ship was rising on a long trajectory 
and what had once been the floor 
was assuming the position of the 
walls. His sandal-cased feet touched 
the new floor and slowly his legs 
buckled and his body came to rest 
with his head very near the super- 
heated wall. The new floor was 
cold. His back ceased to blister but 
his head was encased in waves of 
heat. Tortured beyond endurance, 
the pain-wracked body gave way. He 
plunged feverishly into a great abyss 
of unconsciousness. 

Johannsohn awakened in a mess of 
the contents of his own stomach. In- 
voluntarily his system had relieved 
itself and he had been violently sick 
while unconscious. Painfully he 
raised his head and opened his eyes. 
He saw nothing. The storehold was 
still in compete darkness. He felt 
no fear, only a great curiosity. His 
hands trembled over his body, feel- 
ing for sore spots. There was only 
a diminishing numbness. He let his 
hands fall to the floor. They fell 
slowly and encountered no resistance. 

Immediately the sluggish mind 
awakened into complete conscious- 
ness. Johannsohn was more awake 
at that moment than at any time in 
his life before. It is not enough to 
call his condition horror stricken. It 
was all of that and more because of 
the pitch-blackness and the noises 
and because he did not remember 
where he was. His thrashing set 

his bodv into violent motion and he 
«/ 

went sailing through the air and 
crashed into the first stack of helium 
cylinders that got in his way. 

Swung sidewise by the shock, his 
body described an arc and his head 
struck the now icy-cold wall. It was 
not a heavy blow but it jarred him 



100 



COSMIC STORIES 



into another period of unconscious- 
ness., 

C RUEL LIGHT flooded Johann- 
sohn's eyes when next he awoke. 
The first sensation he experienced 
was the impact of the light, the sec- 
ond was a feeling of constriction at 
different parts of his body as though 
tight bands were holding him to 
some soft, flabby surface. When he 
dared open his eyes sufficiently to 
see they confirmed this impression. 
He was lying on a small upholstered 
couch in a large, brilliantly lighted 
control room and his body was held 
to the couch with many fine bands 
of transparent fabric. 

Three pairs of eyes looked into his 
calmly. Suddenly he felt a stab of 
terror. Then other sensations 
crowded in. A small pain and a slow 
lassitude. 

A firm hand fell on his shoulder. 
He shrank away but decided not to 
expend any strength in resisting. An- 
other hand took up his left arm. 
Pain shot through it, leaving him 
sweating. He uttered no sound. 
Then the pain faded as the hand 
rapidly injected the contents of a 
hypodermic needle. A calm, bearded 
face looked down at his own. 

“Your arm is broken. Please lie 
quietly.” The voice was low, softly 
modulated. There was no stern 
authority. Merely a quiet compul- 
sion. His reaction was indifference. 
The attitude was familiar. He felt 
neither gratitude nor anger. Through 
the warped mazes of his mind his 
own voice struggled to speak. 

“Where . . . where . . .” 

The bearded man patted his 
shoulder. 

“You will be taken care of. Please 
do not move.” 

He beckoned to the two other men 
in the room. They had hung motion- 



less some yards away observing. 
Slowly they floated toward the couch 
and stared down at the fugitive. 

Hatred, in a long streak, blazed 
acidly through Johannsohn's brain. 

He struggled to rise. 

“You hurt me,” he said slowly. 

The first man turned to the others. 

“The broadcast said he wouldn't 
be violent. Anders, get me some 
vinotrol.” 

While the man addressed loped 
across the room, the former turned 
again to Johannsohn. 

“You've put us to a lot of trouble.” 
He spoke partly to the fugitive, part- 
ly to himself. “If it hadn't been for 
the smell of your disgorged food 
coming through on the air-condition- 
ing we'd never have found you at 
all.” 

“Jorel, here's the vinotrol. Don’t 
inject too much.” 

The bearded man reached back 
without turning, took the proferred 
hypodermic. 

“Now listen to me carefully, friend 
Johannsohn. You've got a nasty 
broken arm and we've got to fix it 
for you. Can you understand that?” 

Johannsohn nodded sullenly. He 
kept flaming hatred out of his glance. 

“And we've got to hurt you again. 
This vinotrol helps the bone to heal 
rapidly. It's for your own good.” 

Johannsohn made no sign of as- 
sent. His eyes clouded. His lips 
parted. 

“Don't hurt me too much,” he 
gasped slowly. In the back of his 

mind red rage flared high with spas- 

/ 

modic violence. For your own good, 
they said! The large head shook, 
trembled with silent anger. What 
did they know of his own good ? How 
could they understand that he would 
prefer to lie there with his arm bone 
shattered and pain ripping through 
like lightning shreds ? Pain was 




THE LAST VIKING 



101 



noble. At least it was in the old books. 
Heroes with broken limbs clung to 
the gear of storm-battered ships and 
brought them home to safety. 
Rugged men of old clad in bloody 
armor charged at the head of vic- 
torious raiders through waves of 
slicing pain and coursed through 
blood to glory. Colored pictures 
danced in his eyes. Steel flashed in 
the strong hands of sturdy Vikings. 
The world was drowned in Johann- 
sohn's battle cry. It was like the 
death-scream of a wounded tiger, 
flaming defiance and unconquerable 
hate. 

S UDDENLY the men drew back. 

The madman's shriek pierced 
through to something deep and pri- 
meval within their souls. But Johann- 
sohn was unaware. Clad in mail he 
rode through smoky mists over 
sterile ranks of grey-clad authority. 
He hated it. He conquered it. 

The exhausted fugitive fell back, 
his brief moment of clarity vanished 
in wisps of mental fog. 

Capable hands took hold of him, 
injected the vinotrol. Presently 
Johannsohn slept. 

Soft music whispered through the 
control room. Johannsohn opened 
his eyes. Still bound. Still held to 
his prison couch like a tiger to its 
cage. 

They fed him, a cup of beef syn- 
thextract that gave him slow 
strength. Again the mists swirled 
down. They looked at him a brief 
moment, then returned to their vari- 
ous occupations. The playing radio, 
the metallic voices of the control 
levers. 

Johannsohn growled. Jorel, his 
fingers flying at a keyboard, looked 
up. 

“Hungry?” he asked. “Carewe, 
give him a chocolate bar.” 



The answer to this was another 
growl. Johannsohn strained upward 
at his bonds. 

Carewe, reading, held lightly to a 
chair by straps, looked suddenly 
grave. 

“Better let him stretch a bit, Jorel. 
He’s liable to resent being tied down. 
Those bonds can't hold forever.” 

Jorel nodded. 

“I suppose we can let him loose 
for awhile,” he replied, leaving the 
keyboard and shooting rapidly toward 
the couch. He leaned behind Johann- 
sohn, loosened the bonds. 

“Move, if you want to,” he said to 
the fugitive, “but not too violently. 
There's no gravity. You've observed 
how carefully we push ourselves 
about. You'll bash in your head if 
you don't do the same.” 

Johannsohn's answer was a sud- 
den explosion of energy. Pushing 
violently against the yielding fabric 
of the couch with doubled legs he 
planted his head sickeningly into 
Jorel's stomach. Jorel shot back- 
ward as though hurled from a can- 
non. His body, flying obliquely up- 
ward met a bent feed pipe with a 
crushing impact. In an instant his 
head was a bloody pulp. Little red 
droplets collected, floated about his 
body like satellites. 

Anders' head came up with a jerk. 
He saw Johannsohn swing cunningly 
against the further wall, plant his 
feet and shoot like a rocket toward 
Carewe. Carewe, caught unawares, 
gave a great gasping sigh as the 
madman's rigidly extended right arm 
caught his head and snapped it over, 
breaking his neck instantly. His body 
floated slowly upward, a foot catch- 
ing in a crevice in the chair, holding 
him like a captive balloon. The 
broken straps waved like water 
plants. 

Johannsohn whirled. He glanced 



102 



COSMIC STORIES 



around with mad lights dancing in 
his eyes. Anders, stunned, floating 
far from any vantage point, drifted 
helplessly. The fugitive brandished 
a short metal rod. He snarled, his 
lips twisting into a menacing grin. 

“I will kill- you, too,” he cried, 
froth bubbling from between 
clenched teeth. 

Anders did not move. Quietly he 
folded his arms. 

“What is this ship?’' demanded 
‘ Johannsohn. 

“A space freighter. Why do you 
want to know?” 

Then all the repression of a dozen 
years was bursting through and 
Johannsohn laughed wildly. 

“I own this ship . . . and I own 
you ! Where is the steering con- 
trol? How is the ship steered?” 

Anders went white. 

“All space vessels are steered on 
pre-determined, locked courses. The 
slightest deviation from the chart 
figures would mean being immediate- 
ly lost in interstellar space.” The 
words came slowly from trembling 
lips. “Certainly you would not de- 
stroy the ship?” 

Johannsohn, drifting closer to him, 
grinned again. 

“This is my ship now. How many 
other men are aboard?” 

Anders shrugged his shoulders 
helplessly. 

“No more. The vessel operates it- 
self. A crew is required only for 
landing.” 

He backed away from the madman 
slowly, moving his feet like fins. 

Johannsohn calmed. The wild 
light faded from his eyes. The up- 
raised arm clenching the metal bar 
fell to his side. 

“Change the course,” he said de- 
liberately. 

“Change . . . the . • • course?” 
Anders stared at the fugitive, “Do 



you wish to die . . . out there?” He 
pointed to a porthole framing a solid 
black expanse of sky. 

“I will not die,” replied Johann- 
sohn. “If you do not change the 
course I will kill you.” 

A NDERS stumbled, fell back 
against the wall. Dead, he 
thought, all of them, and now they 
woud die too. Better to throw the 
ship into empty space than to allow 
it to crash unattended into the Mar- 
tian deserts. More lives were at stake 
than were worth the broken scraps 
of a space freighter. Silently he 
moved to the keyboard, flicked a 
finger. With a surge of power the 
vessel responded. The two men 
swayed, their bodies dipping under 
the impulse. 

“Where are we going?” asked 
Johannsohn. He allowed the metal 
bar to slip from his fingers. 

Anders looked at him curiously, 
with a dead light in his eyes. He 
chuckled. 

“I do not know.” 

Flexing his legs he shot toward a 
port, opened it with a single thrust 
of his arm, floated into a tubular cor- 
ridor. 

Johannsohn did not try to stop 
him. Mumbling to himself he fol- 
lowed. 

After a while Anders pushed him- 
self through another port into a 
domed room. Thousands of stars 
peered through curving glass panels. 
Johannsohn came up behind him. 
“Where are we going?” he de- 
manded again. He spoke with a 
strong dignity, holding his injured 
arm tightly against his body. There 
was no pain in his eyes. 

Anders looked back at him. 
“Straight to that mythical hell of 
our ancestors, I suppose. Well, Jo- 
hannsohn, what are you going to do 



THE LAST VIKING 



103 



now? You're master of the ship. 
You can steer it by pulling those lit- 
tle levers back in the control room. 
Pull them any way you want. It 
doesn't matter much." He mused 
awhile, “Johannsohn . . . you can 
own space as long as the fuel holds 
out." 

The other did not reply. He looked 
wildly down at his body, his fingers, 
his feet. 

“It's a big ocean, that one," said 
Anders softly, “And you're the mas- 
ter of it all . . . for awhile." 

“Yes." Again Johannsohn drew 
himself up firmly. He was master 
now. No more authority. No more 
compulsion. Space was his. The 
world. As far as he could see, 
searching the skies, blazing stars 
stretched ahead like giant torches 
lighting his way. 

Then he whimpered. Pain, in 



ragged streaks, shot through his leg 
where a blood vessel had burst. 

“Pain ?" asked Anders sympa- 
thetically. He laughed ironically. “A 
Viking of space can feel no pain, 
Johannsohn. Courage, warrior!" 
Then his face became grave. “The 
first space rover . . . and the last . . . 
What will you steal from heavy 
laden barks? What treasures will 
you transfer to your pirate hold? To 
what safe port will you bring your 
ship to anchor?" 

He remained staring at the stars 
for a long time. 

Unheeding, Johannsohn was liv- 
ing his moment. In this moment 
when around another's head the 
walls were tumbling. He swept his 
arm dramatically across the vast ex- 
panse of the mighty void. 

“It was like this in the days of 
old," he said slowly. 



MEET THE LAVA NYMPH! 




She's in the February Issue 
of the new 



STIRRING 

SCIENCE 

STORIES 

The first magazine to feature 
both science-fiction and fan- 
tasy-fiction at the same time! 

Two magazines for the 
price of one! 

Only 15 c 





Amltitian 

by Wilfred Owen Morley 



He stood upon the rim of time and whispered: night, 

Let me explore your face and know each wheeling star 
Upon it; let me plunge into the seas of light 
Which bathe strange worlds, unknown, in galaxies afar. 
And let me learn the baffling music of the spheres, 
And with these cosmic notes new melodies create 
That I may route with song the multitude of fears 
Which chain the human soul in endless war and hate. 

For I shall go beyond .... Outside the mortal ken, 
Beyond the walls of time, the veils of life and death, 
And pluck forbidden fruits from trees unknown to men, 
And listen to eternity's last gasping breath. 

He sighed: my mad desires are vaster, far, than all 
Creation, although I am pitifully small. 



106 



COSMIC STORIES 



all swell, but as for me — I'm from 
Missouri.” 

Standish took him in earnest. 

'Til try to prove it to you.” He 
looked about the room, then mo- 
tioned for silence. “Just be patient 
and wait for me to get my mind in 
order. Naturally it requires inten- 
sive concentration to think along 
these new lines.” He leaned back in 
his chair, folded his hands on his 
lap, and stared up at the ceiling. He 
grew quieter and quieter and his 
brow furrowed in mighty effort. 

His friend sat very still in his 
chair waiting for results. He watched 
Standish as the lines of concentra- 
tion deepened, noticed that his eyes 
were fixed quite immutably upon a 
point far beyond the ceiling itself. 



The room was very quiet. The soft 
inhales and exhales of the two men's 
breaths were clearly audible. Noth- 
ing else could be heard save perhaps 
that strange sound that suggests it- 
self in utter silence. Minutes went 
by and still the men sat. 

Standish looked down. He turned 
his head and looked again at his 
friend seated opposite him. Taking 
a deep slow breath, he let it out slow- 
ly and softly. Then he caught his 
fellow’s eye and motioned silently to 
a corner of the room. 

Seated opposite him, the man 
named Jones turned his head and 
looked long and wonderingly at the 
cluster of purple dandelions growing 
out of a crack in one far corner of 
the room. 



(locJzet 

by DAMON KNIGHT 

You may say what you choose about tight-fitting shoes 
And sharp cockle-burrs in the pocket ; 

But for sheer lack of comfort you must give its dues 
To the torture-machine called a rocket. 

If persistent and clear there’s a noise in your ear, 

Till you’d much rather get out and walk it, 

That is only the jet-motor, back in the rear — 

They call it the Song of the Rocket. 

They consider it fair to announce, “No more air! 

“We must all hold our breaths till we dock it.” 

And if you protest they’ll say, “What do you care? 
“It’s all for the fame of the Rocket!” 

And as for the hold, with meats old and cold 
And tinned beans and biscuits they stock it. 

When you ask for a steak without quite so much mold* 
They say, “Must conserve space on a Rocket!” 

When I get my release, if I’m all in one piece, 

I shall take my space-license and hock it. 

And then I shall look, with a club and a kris 
For the man who invented the rocket. 



PURPLE DANDELIONS 

Juf Millard Ve/ute Qatelon 

A Cosmic Storiette 



UITHHOUGHT is force/’ said Stan- 
-*• dish, leaning his elbows on 
the table and staring over at Marlow. 
He waved a hand in the air, finger 
pointed to emphasize his words. 

“Thought is force/’ he repeated. 
“And the most potent force in the 
world.” He looked firmly at his 
friend. “In the entire universe I 
might say,” he added as if to ampli- 
fy his remarks. 

Marlow leaned back to get away 
from that positive finger. 

“You are too absolute in your 
statements. True, science has meas- 
ured the energy of thought and has 
registered its passage in the form of 
weak electrical charges, but you 
carry it too far. Would you say that 
because I think a thing it must be 
so?” Marlow lifted his cigar to his 
mouth, a slightly disbelieving smile 
on his business-like countenance. 
Standish’s lean face leaped to a quick 
smile. 

“Yes,” he answered at once with 
the ring of conviction. “Everything 
is thought. If I think a thing, it 
will be so.” He stopped a bit to ar- 
range his words. 

“Consider,” he continued, “real 
thought. Do not get the idea that 
if I were to suddenly think that I am 
seeing — well say purple dandelions 
growing in a corner of this room — or 
maybe that your name was Jones in- 
stead of Marlow — that it would be 
so. Just thinking in the shallow 
manner that man usually does is not 
absolute thought. It is mere image 
projection. We project up a series 



of images or word-phrases, then look 
at them, add or subtract them, and 
call it thinking. It is not. Thinking 
is real. It is the application of 
energy to certain cells, the applica- 
tion of forces to our own physical 
machinery. And when real intense 
trained thought is put into use it is 
above all such juvenilities as images. 
The thought is the substance.” 

Marlow listened respectfully. 
“Easy enough to say,” he remarked. 
“But is such thought as you speak 
of possible or, like most theories, 
mere hypothesis an,d conjecture?” 
He obviously didn’t believe, Standish 
could see that. 

Standish was quite serious when 
he spoke again. 

“I believe that I have mastered the 
ability to think without imagery. I 
have been working on my own men- 
tal ability for several years now and 
though it was a difficult task I mas- 
tered my own ability. When I think 
of a thing it becomes that. Really 
becomes that as far as I or my world 
is concerned.” 

“Naturally that would call for a * 
demonstration,” was the skeptic’s re- 
sponse. “You can’t expect me to be- 
lieve such a wild statement without 
factual proof. Let’s suppose that you 
try out your powers now. You said 
something about visualizing purple 
dandelions — though why they 
couldn’t as well be green or pink— 
for all the good it will do. Let’s see 
these dandelions. And my name is 
still Marlow, you know. Always was 
and always will be. This theory is 



105 




THE REVERSIBLE 
REVOLUTIONS 

Mu Cecil Qosuuin 



f Author of “Thirteen O’C/ocA,” " The Fly-By-Night j ” etc.) 




He'd heard of revolution from the Left and from the Right, but soldier-of-fortune 
Battle didn't know what he was in for when he was hired by Sweetness & Light, the 

Revolution from Above! 



J C. BATTLE, late of the 
Foreign Legion, Bed Army, 
• United States Marines, In- 
vincibles De Bolivia and Coldstream 
Guards, alas Alexandre de Foma, 
Christopher Jukes, Burton Macauly 



and Joseph Hagstrom — nee Etzel 
Bernstein — put up his hands. 

“No tricks/’ warned the feminine 
voice. The ample muzzle of the gun 
in his back shifted slightly, seeming- 
ly from one hand to another. Battle 



107 





108 



COSMIC STORIES 



felt his pockets being gone through. 
“Look out for the left hip,” he volun- 
teered. “That gat's on a hair- 
trigger.” 

“Thanks,” said the feminine voice. 
He felt the little pencil-gun being 
gingerly removed. “Two Colts,” said 
the voice admiringly, “a Police .38, 
three Mills grenades, pencil-gun, 
brass knuckles, truncheons of lead, 
leather and rubber, one stiletto, tear- 
gas gun, shells for same, prussic-acid 
hypo kit, thuggee's braided cord, 
sleeve-Derringer and a box of stink- 
bombs. Well, you walking armory! 
Is that all?” 

“Quite,” said Battle. “Am I being 
taken for a ride?” He looked up the 
dark street and saw nothing in the 
way of accomplices. 

“Nope. I may decide to drop you 
here. But before you find out sup- 
pose you tell me how you got on my 
trail?” The gun jabbed viciously into 
his back. “Talk!” urged the feminine 
voice nastily. 

“How I got on your trail?” ex- 
ploded Battle. “Dear lady, I can't see 
your face, but I assure you that I 
don't recognize your voice, that I'm 
not on anybody's trail, that I'm just 
a soldier of fortune resting up during 
a slack spell in the trade. And any- 
way, I don't knock off ladies. We — 
we have a kind of code.” 

“Yeah?” asked the voice skeptical- 
ly. “Let's see your left wrist.” Mute- 
ly Battle twitched up the cuff and 
displayed it. Aside from a couple of 
scars it was fairly ordinary. “What 
now?” he asked. 

“I'll let you know,” said the voice. 
Battle's hand was twisted behind his 
back, and he felt a cold, stinging liq- 
uid running over the disputed wrist. 
“What the — ?” he began impatiently. 

“Oh!” ejaculated the voice, aghast. 
“I'm sorry! I thought — ” The gun 
relaxed and Battle turned. He could 



dimly see the girl in the light of the 
mere lamp far down the deserted 
street. She appeared to be blushing. 
“Here I've gone and taken you 
apart,” she complained, “and you're 
not even from Breen at all! Let me 
help you.” She began picking up Bat- 
tle's assorted weapons from the side- 
walk where she had deposited them. 
He stowed them away as she handed 
them over. 

“There,” she said. “That must be 
the last of them.” 

“The hypo kit,” he reminded her. 
She was holding it, unconsciously, in 
her left hand. He hefted the shoul- 
der-holster under his coat and 
grunted. “That's better,” he said. 

“You must think I'm an awful 
silly,” said the girl shyly. 

Battle smiled generously as he 
caught sight of her face. “Not at 
all,” he protested. “I've made the 
same mistake myself. Only I've not 
always caught myself in time to 
realize it.” This with a tragic 
frown and sigh. 

“Really?” she breathed. “You 
must be awfully important — all these 
guns and things.” 

“Tools of the trade,” he said non- 
committally. “My card.” He handed 
her a simple pasteboard bearing the 
crest of the U. S. Marines and the 
simple lettering: 

“LT. J. c. BATTLE 

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE — REVOLUTIONS A 

SPECIALTY” 

She stared, almost breathless. 
“How wonderful!” she said. 

“In every major insurrection for 
the past thirty years,” he assured her 
complacently. 

“That must make you — let's see 
— ” she mused. 

“Thirty years, did I say?” he 
quickly interposed. “I meant twenty. 
In case you were wondering, I'm just 



THE REVERSIBLE REVOLUTIONS 



101 , 



thirty-two years old.” He tweaked 
his clipped, military moustache. 

"Then you were in your first at — ” 

"Twelve. Twelve and a half, real- 
ly. Shall we go somewhere for a cup 
of coffee Miss — er — ah — ?” 

"McSweeney,” she said. And added 
demurely, "But my friends all call me 
Spike.” 

<<^~^HINA? Dear me, yes! I was 
with the Eighth Route Army 
during the celebrated Long Trek 
from Annam to Szechuan Province. 
And I shouldn’t call it boasting to ad- 
mit that without me — ” 

Miss Spike McSweeney appeared to 
be hanging on his every word. "Have 
you ever,” she asked, "done any tech- 
nical work?” 

"Engineering? Line of communi- 
cation? Spike, we fighters leave that 
to the ‘greaseballs,’ as they are called 
in most armies. I admit that I fly 
a combat fighter as well as the next — 
assuming that he’s pretty good — but 
as far as the engine goes, I let that 
take care of itself. Why do you ask?” 

"Lieutenant,” she said earnestly, 
"I think I ought to tell you what all 
this mess is about.” 

"Dear lady,” he said gallantly, "the 
soldier does not question his orders.” 

"Anyway,” said Miss McSweeney, 
"I need your help. It’s a plot — a big 
one. A kind of revolution. You proba- 
bly know more about them than I do, 
but this one seems to be the dirtiest 
trick that was ever contemplated.” 

"How big is it?” asked Battle, 
lighting a cigarette. 

"Would you mind not smoking?” 
asked the girl hastily, shrinking away 
from the flame. "Thanks. How big 
is it? World-scale. A world revolu- 
ton. Not from the Right, not from 
the Left, but, as near as I can make 
out, from Above.” 



"How’s that?” asked Battle, star- 
tled. 

"The leader is what you’d call a 
scientist-puritan, I guess. His name’s 
Breen — Dr. Malachi Breen, formerly 
of every important university and 
lab in the world. And now he’s got 
his own revolution all planned out. 
It’s for a world without smoking, 
drinking, swearing, arguing, dancing, 
movies, music, rich foods, steam 
heat — all those things.” 

"Crackpot!” commented the Lieu- 
tenant. 

She stared at him grimly. "You 
wouldn’t think so if you knew him,” 
said Spike. "I’ll tell you what I 
know T . I went to work for him as a 
stenographer. He has a dummy con- 
cern with offices in Rockefeller Plaza 
and a factory in New Jersey. He’s 
supposed to be manufacturing Pot-o- 
Klutch, a device to hold pots on the 
stove in case of an earthquake. With 
that as a front he goes on with his 
planning. He’s building machines of 
some kind in his plant — and with his 
science and his ambition once he 
springs his plans the world will be at 
his feet!” 

"The field of action,” said Battle 
thoughtfully, "would be New Jersey 
principally. Now you want me to 
break this insurrection?” 

"Of course!” agonized the girl. "As 
soon as I found out what it really 
was I hurried to escape. But I knew 
I was being followed by his crea- 
tures !” 

"Exactly,” said Battle. "Now 
what’s in this for me?” 

"I don’t understand. You mean — ?” 
"Money,” said Battle. "The quar- 
termaster’s getting shorthanded. Say 
twenty thousand?” 

The girl only stared. "I haven’t 
any money,” she finally gasped. "I 
thought — ” 

"You thought I’m a dilettante Y l 



110 



COSMIC STORIES 



asked Battle. “Dear lady, my terms 
are fifty per cent cash, remainder 
conditional on the success of the cam- 
paign. I’m sorry I can’t help you — ” 

“Look out!” screamed the girl. Bat- 
tle spun around and ducked under the 
table as a bomb crashed through the 
window of the coffee shop and ex- 
ploded in his face. 

ff^kPEN your eyes, damn you!” 
growled a voice. 

“Stephen — the profanity — ’’ob- 
jected another voice mildly. 

“Sorry, doc. Wake, friend! The 
sun is high.” 

Battle came to with a start and 
saw a roast-beef face glowering into 
his. He felt for his weapons. They 
were all in place. “What can I do for 
you, gentlemen?” he asked. 

“Ah,” said the second voice gently. 
“Our convert is arisen. On your feet, 
Michael.” 

“My name is Battle,” said the 
Lieutenant. “J. C. Battle. My card.” 

“Henceforth you shall be known as 
Michael, the Destroying Angel,” said 
the second voice. “IPs the same 
name, really.” 

Battle looked around him. He wa3 
in a kind of factory, dim and vacant 
except for himself and the two who 
had spoken. They wore pure white 
military uniforms; one was a tough 
boy, obviously. It hurt Battle to see 
how clumsily he carried his guns. 
The bulges were plainly obvious 
through his jacket and under his 
shoulder. The other either wore his 
more skillfully or wasn’t heeled at all. 
That seemed likely, for his gentle 
blue eyes carried not a trace of vio- 
lence, and his rumpled, pure white 
hair was scholarly and innocent. 

“Will you introduce yourselves?” 
asked the Lieutenant calmly. 

“Steve Haglund, outta Chi,” said 
the tough. 



“Malachi Breen, manufacturer of 
Pot-o-Klutch and temporal director of 
Sweetness and Light, the new world 
revolution,” said the old man. 

“Ah,” said Battle, sizing them up. 
“What happened to Miss McSwee- 
ney?” he asked abruptly, remember- 
ing. 

“She is in good hands,” said Breen. 
“Rest easy on her account, Michael. 
You have work to do.” 

“Like what?” asked the Lieuten- 
ant. 

“Trigger work,” said Haglund. 
“Can you shoot straight?” 

In answer there roared out three 
flat crashes, and Battle stood with 
his smoking Police Special in his 
hand. As he reloaded he said, “Get 
yourself a new lathe, Doctor Breen. 
And if you’ll look and see how close 
together the bullets were — ” 

The old man puttered over to Bat- 
tle’s target. “Extraordinary,” he 
murmured. “A poker-chip would cover 
them.” His air grew relatively brisk 
and businesslike. “How much do you 
want for the job?” he asked. “How 
about a controlling factor in the 
world of Sweetness and Light?” 
Battle smiled slowly. “I never ac- 
cept a proposition like that,” he said. 
“Twenty thousand is my talking 
point for all services over a six 
months’ period.” 

“Done,” said Breen promptly, 
counting out twenty bills from an 
antiquated wallet. Battle pocketed 
them without batting an eyelash. 
“Now,” he said, “what’s my job?” 
“As you may know,” said Breen, 
“Sweetness and Light is intended to 
bring into being a new world. Every- 
body will be happy and absolute free- 
dom will be the rule and not the ex- 
ception. All carnal vices will be for- 
bidden and peace will reign. Now 
there happens to be an enemy of this 
movement at large. He thinks he 



THE REVERSIBLE REVOLUTIONS 



111 



has, in fact, a rival movement. It 
is your job to convince him that there 
is no way but mine. And you are 
at absolute liberty to use any argu- 
ments you wish. Is that clear ?” 

“Perfectly, sir,” said Battle. 
“What’s his name?” 

“Lenninger Underbottam,” said 
Breen grinding his teeth. “The most 
unprincipled faker that ever posed as 
a scientist and scholar throughout 
the long history of the world. His 
allegedly rival movement is called 
'Devil Take the Hindmost/ The world 
he wishes to bring into being would 
be one of the most revolting excesses 
— all compulsory, mark you! I con- 
sider it my duty to the future to 
blot him out!” 

His rage boiled over into a string 
of expletives. Then, looking proper- 
ly ashamed, he apologized. “Under- 
bottam affects me strangely and hor- 
ribly. I believe that if I were left 
alone with him I should — I, exponent 
of Sweetness and Light! — resort to 
violence. Anyway, lieutenant, you 
will find him either at his offices in 
the Empire State Building where the 
rotter cowers under the alias of the 
Double-Action Kettlesnatcher Manu- 
facturing Corporation, or in his up- 
state plant where he is busy turn- 
ing out not only weapons and de- 
fenses but his ridiculous Kettle- 
snatcher, a device to remove kettles 
from the stove in case of hurricane 
or typhoon.” 

Battle completed his notes and 
stowed away his memo book. “Thank 
you, sir,” he said. “Where shall I 
deliver the body?” 

4 4'WWELLO!” whispered a voice. 

M.M.' '‘Spike!” Battle whispered 
back. “What are you doing here?” 
He jerked a thumb at the illuminated 
ground-glass of the door, and the leg- 
end “Double Action Kettlesnatcher 



Manufacturing Corp., Lenninger Un- 
derbottam, Pres.” 

“They told me where to find you.” 

“They?” 

“Mr. Breen, of course. Who did 
you think?” 

“But,” expostulated the Lieuten- 
ant, “I thought you hated him and 
his movement?” 

“Oh, that,” said the girl casually. 
“It was just a whim. Are you go- 
ing to knock him off?” 

“You mean Underbottam? Yes. 
Do you want to watch?” 

“Of course. But how did you get 
here?” 

“Climbed one of the elevator 
shafts. The night-watchman never 
saw me. How did you make it?” 

“I slugged the guard and used a 
service lift. Let’s go in.” 

Battle applied a clamp to the door- 
knob and wrenched it out like a tur- 
nip from muddy ground. The door 
swung open as his two Colts leaped 
into his hands. The fat man at the 
ornate desk rose with a cry of alarm 
and began to pump blood as Battle 
drilled him between the eyes. 

“Okay. That’s enough,” said a 
voice. The Lieutenant’s guns were 
snatched from his hands with a jerk 
that left them stinging, and he gaped 
in alarm as he saw, standing across 
the room an exact duplicate of the 
bleeding corpse on the floor. 

“You Battle?” asked the dupli- 
cate, who was holding a big, elabor- 
ate sort of radio tube in his hand. 

“Yes,” said the Lieutenant feebly. 
“My card — ” 

“Never mind that. Who’s the 
dame?” 

“Miss McSweeney. And you, sir, 
are — ?” 

“I’m Underbottam, chief of Devil 
Take the Hindmost. You from 
Breen?” 

“I was engaged by the doctor for 



112 



COSMIC STORIES 



a brief period,’' admitted Battle. 
“However, our services were termin- 
ated — ” 

“Liar,” snapped Underbottam. 
“And if they weren’t, they will be in 
a minute or two. Lamp this!” He 
rattled the radio tube, and from its 
grid leaped a fiery radiance that im- 
pinged momentarily on the still-bleed- 
ing thing that Battle had shot down. 
The thing was consumed in one awful 
blast of heat. “End of a robot,” said 
Underbottam, shaking the tube 
again. The flame died down, and 
there was nothing left of the corpse 
but a little, fused lump of metal. 

“Now. You going to work for me, 
Battle ?” 

“Why not?” shrugged the Lieuten- 
ant. 

“Oke. Your duties are as follows: 
Get Breen. I don’t care how you 
get him, but get him soon. That 
faker! He posed for twenty years 
as a scientist without ever being ap- 
prehended. Well, I’m going to do 
some apprehending that’ll make all 
previous apprehending look like no 
apprehension at all. You with me?” 

“Yes,” said Battle, very much con- 
fused. “What’s that thing you have?” 

“Piggy-back heat-ray. You trans- 
pose the air in its path into an un- 
stable isotope which tends to carry 
all energy as heat. Then you shoot 
your juice light, or whatever along 
the isotopic path and you burn what- 
ever’s on the receiving end. You 
want a few?” 

“No,” said Battle. “I have my 
gats. What else have you got for 
offense and defense?” 

Underbottam opened a cabinet and 
proudly waved an arm. “Everything,” 
he said. “Disintegrates, heat-rays, 
bombs of every type. And impene- 
trable shields of energy, massive and 
portable. What more do I need?” 

“Just as I thought,” mused the 



Lieutenant. “You’ve solved half the 
problem. How about tactics ? Who’s 
going to use your weapons?” 

“Nothing to that,” declaimed Un- 
derbottam airily. “I just announce 
that I have the perfect social sys- 
tem. My army will sweep all before 
it. Consider: Devil Take the Hind- 
most promises what every person 
wants — pleasure, pure and simple. Or 
vicious and complex, if necessary. 
Pleasure will be compulsory; people 
will be so busy being happy that they 
won’t have time to fight or oppress 
or any of the other things that make 
the present world a caricature of a 
madhouse.” 

“What about hangovers?” unex- 
pectedly asked Spike McSweeney. 

Underbottam grunted. “My dear 
young lady,” he said. “If you had a 
hangover, would yoirwant to do any- 
thing except die? It’s utterly auto- 
matic. Only puritans — damn them! 
— have time enough on their hands 
to make war. You see?” 

“It sounds reasonable,” confessed 
the girl. 

“Now, Battle,” said Underbottam. 
“What are your rates?” 

“Twen — ” began the Lieutenant 
automatically. Then, remembering 
the ease with which he had made his 
last twenty thousand he paused. 
“Thir — ” he began again. “Forty 
thousand,” he said firmly, holding out 
his hand. 

“Right,” said Underbottam busily, 
handing him two bills. 

Battle scanned them hastily and 
stowed them away. “Come on,” he 
said to Spike. “We have a job to 
do.” 

T HE LIEUTENANT courteously 
showed Spike a chair. “Sit 
down,” he said firmly. “I’m going to 
unburden myself.” Agitatedly Battle 
paced his room. “I don’t know where 



THE REVERSIBLE REVOLUTIONS 



113 



in hell Fm at!” he yelled frantically. 

“All my life I’ve been a soldier. I 
know military science backwards and 
forwards, but Fm damned if I can 
make head or tail of this bloody mess. 
Two scientists each at the other’s 
throat, me hired by both of them to 
knock off the other — and incidentally, 
where do you stand?” He glared at 
the girl. 

“Me?” she asked mildly. “I just 
got into this by accident. Breen 
manufactured me originally, but I got 
out of order and gave you that fan- 
tastic story about me being a steno 
at his office — I can hardly believe it 
was me!” 

“What do you mean, manufactured 
you?” demanded Battle. 

“Fm a robot, Lieutenant. Look.” 
Calmly she took off her left arm and 
put it on again. 

Battle collapsed into a chair. “Why 
didn’t you tell me?” he groaned. 

“You didn’t ask me,” she retorted 
with spirit. “And what’s wrong with 
robots? Fm a very superior model, 
by the way — the Seduction Special, 
designed for diplomats, army-officers 
(that must be why I sought you out), 
and legislators. Part of Sweetness 
and Light. Breen put a lot of work 
into me himself. Fm only good for 
about three years, but Breen expects 
the world to be his by then.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asked 
Battle weakly. He sprang from his 
chair. “But this pretty much decides 
me, Spike. Fm washed up. Fm 
through with Devil Take the Hind- 
most and Sweetness and Light both. 
Fm going back to Tannu-Tuva for 
the counterrevolution. Damn Breen, 
Underbottam and the rest of them!” 

“That isn’t right, Lieutenant,” said 
the robot thoughtfully. “Undeterred 
one or the other of them is bound 
to succeed. And that won’t be nice 
for you. A world without war?” 



“Awk!” grunted Battle. “You’re 
right, Spike. Something has to be 
done. But not by me. That heat- 
ray — ugh !” He shuddered. 

“Got any friends?” asked Spike. 

“Yes,” said Battle, looking at her 
hard. “How did you know?” 

“I just guessed — ” began the robot 
artlessly. 

“Oh no you didn’t,” gritted the 
Lieutenant. “I was just going to 
mention them. Can you read minds?” 

“Yes,” said the robot in a small 
voice. “I was built that way. Gover- 
nor Burly — faugh! It was a mess.” 

“And — and you know all about 
me?” demanded Battle. 

“Yes,” she said. “I know you’re 
forty-seven and not thirty-two. And 
I know that you were busted from 
the marines. And I know that your 
real name is — ” 

“That’s enough,” he said, white- 
faced. 

“But,” said the robot, softly, “I 
love you anyway.” 

“What?” sputtered the Lieutenant. 

“And I know that you love me too, 
even if I am — what I am.” 

Battle stared at her neat little 
body and her sweet little face. “Can 
you be kissed?” he asked at length. 

“Of course, Lieutenant,” she said. 
Then, demurely, “I told you I was a 
very superior model.” 

T O EXPECT a full meeting of the 
Sabre Club would be to expect 
too much. In the memory of the 
oldest living member, Major Breug- 
hel who had been to the Nether- 
lands Empire what Clive and Warren 
Hastings had been to the British, two 
thirds — nearly — had gathered from 
the far corners of the earth to ob- 
serve the funeral services for a mem- 
ber who had been embroiled in a 
gang war and shot in the back. The 



114 



COSMIC STORIES 



then mayor of New York had been 
reelected for that reason. 

At the present meeting, called by 
First Class Member Battle, about a 
quarter of the membership appeared. 

There was Peasely, blooded in Ton- 
kin, 1899. He had lo&t his left leg 
to the thigh with Kolchak in Siberia. 
Peasely was the bombardier of the 
Sabre Club. With his curious half- 
lob he could place a Mills or potato 
masher or nitro bottle on a dime. 

Vaughn, he of the thick Yorkshire 
drawl, had had the unique honor of 
hopping on an axis submarine and 
cleaning it out with a Lewis gun from 
stem to stern, then, single-handed, 
piloting it to Liverpool torpedoing a 
German mine-layer on the way. 

The little Espera had left a trail 
of bloody revolution through the 
whole of South America; he had a 
weakness for lost causes. It was 
worth his life to cross the Panama 
Canal; therefore he made it a point 
to do so punctually once a year. He 
never had his bullets removed. Bv 

K/ 

latest tally three of his ninety-seven 
pounds were lead. 

“When," demanded Peasely fret- 
fully, “is that lug going to show up? 
I had an appointment with a cabinet- 
maker for a new leg. Had to call it 
off for Battle's summons. Bloody 
shame — he doesn't give a hang for 
my anatomy." 

“Ye'll coom when 'e wish, bate’s 
un," drawled Vaughn unintelligibly. 
Peasely snarled at him. 

Espera sprang to his feet. “Miss 
Millicent," he said effusively. 

“Don't bother to rise, gentlemen," 
announced the tall, crisp woman who 
had entered. “As if you would any- 
way. I just collected on that Fio- 
renza deal, Manuel," she informed 
Espera. “Three gees. How do you 
like that?" 

“I could have done a cleaner job," 



said Peasely snappishly. He had cast 
the only blackball when this first 
woman to enter the Sabre Club had 
been voted a member. “What did you 
use?" 

“Lyddite," she said, putting on a 
pale lipstick. 

“Thot's pawky explaw-seeve," com- 
mented Vaughn. “I'd noat risk such." 

She was going to reply tartly when 
Battle strode in. They greeted him 
with a muffled chorus of sighs and 
curses. 

“Hi," he said briefly. “I'd like your 
permission to introduce a person 
waiting outside. Rules do not apply 
in her case for — for certain reasons. 
May I?" 

There was a chorus of assent. He 
summoned Spike, who entered. 
“Now," said Battle, “I’d like your 
help in a certain matter of great im- 
portance to us all." 

“Yon’s t' keenin' tool," said the 
Yorkshireman. 

“Okay, then. We have to storm 
and take a plant in New Jersey. This 
plant is stored with new weapons — 
dangerous weapons — weapons which, 
worst of all, are intended to effect a 
world revolution which will bring an 
absolute and complete peace within a 
couple of years, thus depriving us of 
our occupations without compensa- 
tion. Out of self-defense we must 
take this measure. Who is with me ? ’ 

All hands shot up in approval. 
“Good. Further complications are as 
follows: This is only one world rev- 
olution; there's another movement 
which is in rivalry to it, and which 
will surely dominate if the first does 
not. So we will have to split our 
forces — " 

“No you won't," said the voice of 
Underbottam. 

“Where are you?" asked Battle, 
looking around the room. 

“In my office, you traitor. I'm us- 




THE REVERSIBLE REVOLUTIONS 



115 



ing a wire screen in your clubroom 
for a receiver and loudspeaker in a 
manner you couldn’t possibly under- 
stand.” 

“I don’t like that traitor talk,” said 
Battle evenly. “I mailed back your 
money — and Breen's. Now what was 
that you said?” 

“We’ll be waiting for you together 
in Rockefeller Center. Breen and I 
have pooled our interests. After 
we’ve worked our revolution we’re 
going to flip a coin. That worm 
doesn’t approve of gambling, of 
course, but he’ll make this excep- 
tion.” 

“And if I know you, Underbottam,” 
said Battle heavily, “it won’t be gam- 
bling. What time in Rockefeller 
Center?” 

“Four in the morning. Bring y»ur 
friends — nothing like a showdown. 
By heaven, I’m going to save the 
world whether you like it or not!” 

The wire screen from which the 

a 

voice had been coming suddenly fused 
in a flare of light and heat. 

Miss Millicent broke the silence. 
“Scientist !” she said in a voice heavy 
with scorn. Suddenly there was a 
gun in her palm. “If he’s human I 
can drill him,” she declared. 

“Yeah,” said Battle gloomily. 
“That’s what I thought.” 

T HE whole length of Sixth Avenue 
not a creature was stirring, not 
even a mouse, as the six crept 
through the early-morning darkness 
under the colossal shadow of the 
RCA Building. The vertical archi- 
tecture of the Center was lost in the 
sky as they hugged the wall of the 
Music Hall. 

“When do you suppose they’ll 
finish it?” asked Peasely, jerking a 
thumb at the boarding over the Sixth 
Avenue Subway under construction. 
“What do you care?” grunted Bat- 



tle. “We need a scout to take a look 
at the plaza. How about you, Manuel? 
You’re small and quick.” 

“Right,” grinned Espera. “I could 
use a little more weight.” He sped 
across the street on silent soles, no 
more than a shadow in the dark. But 
he had been spotted, for a pale beam 
of light hissed for a moment on the 
pavement beside him. He flattened 
and gestured. 

“Come on — he says,” muttered 
Miss Millicent. They shot across the 
street and flattened against the 
building. “Where are they, Manuel?” 
demanded Battle. 

“Right there in the plaza beside 
the fountain. They have a mess of 
equipment. Tripods and things. A 
little generator.” 

“Shall I try a masher?” asked 
Peasely. 

“Do,” said Miss Millicent. “Noth- 
ing would be neater.” 

The man with the wooden leg un- 
shipped a bomb from his belt and 
bit out the pin. He held it to his 
ear for just a moment to hear it 
sizzle. “I love the noise,” he ex- 
plained apologetically to Spike. Then 
he flung it with a curious twist of 
his arm. 

Crash ! 

Battle looked around the corner of 
the building. “They haven’t been 
touched. And that racket’s going to 
draw the authorities,” he said. “They 
have some kind of a screen, I guess.” 

“Darling,” whispered Spike. 

“What is it?” asked Battle, sens- 
ing something in her tone. 

“Nothing,” she said, as women 
will. 

“Close in under heavy fire, may- 
be?” suggested the little Espera. 

“Yep,” snapped Battle. “Oops! 
There goes a police whistle.” 

Pumping lead from both hips the 
six of them advanced down the steps 




116 



COSMIC STORIES 



to the plaza, where Breen and Un- 
derbottam were waiting behind a 
kind of shimmering illumination. 

The six ducked behind the waist- 
high stone wall of the Danish res- 
taurant, one of the eateries w r hich 
rimmed the plaza. Hastily, as the 
others kept up their fire, Vaughn set 
up a machinegun. “Doon, a' fu’ 
leef!” he ordered. They dropped be- 
hind the masking stone. 

“Cae oot, yon cawbies!” yelled 
Vaughn. 

His only answer was a sudden 
dropping of the green curtain and a 
thunderbolt or something like it that 
winged at him and went way over his 
head to smash into the RCA Build- 
ing and shatter three stories. 

“Haw!” laughed Peasely. “They 
can’t aim ! Watch this.” He bit an- 
other grenade and bowled it under- 
hand against the curtain. The ground 
heaved and buckled as the crash of 
the bomb sounded. In rapid succes- 
sion he rolled over enough to make 
the once-immaculate Plaza as broken 
a bit of terrain as was ever seen, 
bare pipes and wires exposed under- 
neath. Underbottam’s face was dis- 
torted with rage. 

The curtain dropped abruptly and 
the two embattled scientists and 
would-be saviors of the world 
squirted wildly with everything they 
had — rays in every color of the spec- 
trum, thunderbolts and lightning- 
flashes, some uncomfortably near. 

The six couldn’t face up to it; 
what they saw nearly blinded them. 
They flattened themselves to the 
ground and prayed mutely in the 
electric clash and spatter of science 
unleashed. 

“Darling,” whispered Spike, her 
head close to Battle’s. 

“Yes?” 

“Have you got a match?” she 



asked tremulously. “No — don’t say 
a word.” She took the match-pack 
and kissed him awkwardly and ab- 
ruptly. “Stay under cover,” she said. 
“Don’t try to follow. When my fuel- 
tank catches it’ll be pretty violent.” 

Suddenly she was out from behind 
the shelter and plastered against one 
of the tumbled rocks, to leeward of 
the worldsavers’ armory. A timid 
bullet or two was coming from the 
Danish restaurant. 

In one long, staggering run she 
made nearly seven yards, then 
dropped, winged by a heat-ray that 
cauterized her arm. Cursing, Spike 
held the matches in her mouth and 
tried to strike one with her remain- 
ing hand. It lit, and she applied it 
to the pack, dropping them to the 
ground. Removing what remained of 
her right arm she lit it at the flaring 
pack. It blazed like a torch; her 
cellulose skin was highly inflammable. 

She used the arm to ignite her 
body at strategic points and then, a 
blazing, vengeful figure of flame, 
hurled herself on the two scientists in 
the plaza. 

From the restaurant Battle could 
see, through tear-wet eyes, the fea- 
tures of the fly-by-night worldsavers. 
Then Spike’s fuel-tank exploded and 
everything blotted out in one vivid 
sheet of flame. 

“Come on! The cops!” hissed Miss 
Millicent. She dragged him, sobbing 
as he was, into the Independent Sub- 
way station that let out into the 
Center. Aimlessly he let her lead 
him onto an express, the first of the 
morning. 

“Miss Millicent, I loved her,” he 
complained. 

“Why don’t you join the Foreign 
Legion to forget?” she suggested 
amiably. 

“What!” he said, making a wry 
face. “Again?” 



BIPED 

Jmj. RgAaI Weill 

( Author of “Rebirth of Man” “ Winged Warriors” etc.) 

It was a monster who came among those peaceful people, a monster that walked on two 

legs! 




TRANGE MAN/’ spoke 
gray-bearded Nab Tul, 
Elder of N’voo Canyon, 
“we have come to a decision. Tonight 
you must choose what your fate will 
be. You must go to the Temple, where 
the priests of Urim and Thummim 
will destroy your monstrous body, or 
you must consent to have those use- 
less lower limbs amputated. 

“It is not good,” he continued, 
“that a monster roam among us, 
affrighting our women and children. 
We of Nephi have come to like you. 
You are a good, though clumsy, 
worker in the corn fields and in the 
orchards. 

“We hope you will decide to remain 
with us, for, despite your physical 
handicaps several of our young 
women have admitted a definite in- 
terest in you. One in particular,” 
and he smiled. 

I knew whom he meant very well — 
Inya Tul, his granddaughter. And I 
loved her too. We had planned to 
build a home somewhere in the can- 
yon some time in the future. But 
now . . . ! 



O NLY two months before I had 
come drifting down into N'voo 
Canyon, an uncharted hidden oasis 
in the savage wastelands just north 
of the Four Corners along the Colo- 



rado River, and landed beside a shady 
pool where Inya swam alone. 

She had screamed and swum be- 
neath a screening wall of willows, 
only her shapely shoulders and damp 
red curls thrusting out through that 
leafy covering. Never, in all the cities 
of Greater America, had I seen a 
more lovely face than hers. . , . 

“Go away,” she had cried. “I am 
bathing here.” 

“So I gather,” I replied with a 
grin, and loosened the wide straps 
that harnessed me to my D grav 
cylinder. Carefully I moored my cyl- 
inder to a projecting branch of a 
nearby cottonwood tree and then 
turned my back. 

“Go ahead,” I shouted, “and jerk 
on your clothes.” 

Shortly afterward I heard her soft 
steps approaching and turned to meet 
her. I gasped. Never, in all the 
known world of the Twenty-second 
Century, had I beheld so lovely and 
feminine a girl as was Inya — yet she 
was but a half-woman! 

From her waist down there was 
nothing, save a pair of shapeless 
withered feet, beneath her brief, 
woven-leather kilt! 

Her firm, high-breasted bosom was 
confined by a laced jacket of pale 
gray homespun, and on her long, 
firm-fleshed brown arms were heavy 



117 




118 



COSMIC STORIES 



leather mittens. She walked, as 
would a normal person, on her two 
palms, placing one arm before the 
other as she proceeded; not like the 
usual legless cripple who hitches 
along on his stumps. Her walk was 
graceful and dainty like herself, and 
after the first moment of revulsion 
I was filled with admiration. 

“Where do you come from, Mon- 
ster ?” she demanded angrily. “The 
priests of Urim and Thummim will 
hear of this. It is their duty to de- 
stroy such as you in infancy, and 
you are man-grown.” 

“I am from the outside world,” I 
told her. “And my name is • Morton 
Whipple. I was prospecting for gold 
and other precious metals here in 
Utah, pulling the D grav unit that 
I use to descend and ascend into the 
sheerest canyons, when I stumbled 
across your valley. Chance for some 
fresh cool water and food instead of 
this radio-transmitted hot water and 
sawdust, I told myself; so here I am.” 

“There is no world beyond this 
valley,” the girl cried. “Only a desert 
of sun-baked rocks and looming red 
and yellow cliffs lies beyond.” 

I looked down at her and smiled. 
Apparently her people had been out 
of touch with the world for many 
years and had taught her nothing 
of civilization. (Many people have 
fled from the complexity of modern 
life into the wilderness, there to live 
the simple wholesome life of an 
earlier happier age.) Perhaps they 
had hidden here to shield her de- 
formity from the world. . . . 

So, while I weighted down my D 
grav cylinder with several hundred 
pounds of rocks until my return, the 
girl, Inya, told me of the valley and 
the thousand or more Nephites who 
lived there. 

Many ages ago, she told me, 
strange, wicked beings, the Wolf 



Hunters, she called them, had driven 
the Nephites into N'voo and sealed 
the outer pass forever. Then the 
power of the peepstones, Urim and 
Thummim, was called upon by the 
priests of the Temple and all the 
outer world blasted to a cinder. 

And the Wolf Hunters, I learned, 
had long, sturdy legs even as did I! 
The Nephites, all of them, were 
legless ! 

No wonder she had called me a 
monster, I realized; slowly I began 
to piece together a true picture of 
what had happened many years 
before. 

Banished here to this isolated can- 
yon by the Mormon Wolf Hunters 
some time in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury, these people had, through the 
course of many generations, weeded 
out all normal offspring by ruthlessly 
destroying them. Even as the chil- 
dren of six-fingered parents were 
likewise so afflicted, and armless par- 
ents often bore armless offspring, so 
these people ran true to their freak- 
ish heredity. . . . 

L ATER Inya led me to the central 
village, her smooth strong arms 
carrying her along at a pace that 
taxed my legs, and shortly I was sur- 
rounded by a waist-high crowd of 
muttering human torsos. After a 
time her father, Nab Tul, led me 
away to his home and gave me food 
and a place to sleep. 

After that, as I walked about the 
village or roamed the valley three or 
four armed men were always close 
by. When I walked or ran they were 
always beside or ahead of me, their 
great shoulder and arm muscles 
working as smoothly and powerfully 
as my own lower extremities. 

They could spring across the irri- 
gation ditches or brooks as easily as 
could I and in tests of strength they 





BIPED 



119 



could always best me. So, since I was 
so well guarded, I did not try to 
return to my D grav cylinder and 
escape. In a few days, I decided, 
when their vigilance had slackened, 
I would slip away to my cylinder, 
free it of excess weight, and float 
out of the valley again as I had come. 

I had reckoned without Inya, how- 
ever. Being with her every day soon 
made me forget my plan to leave the 
valley — I was in love! 

So I worked with the legless men 
in their fields and made many friends 
among them. All thought of leaving 
the canyon and Inya was banished 
from my mind. We were planning a 
little cabin and . . . 

MUST think it over/' I told 
Nab Tul. “Tonight after we 
have eaten I will give you my 
answer. ,, 

The skin of my body was clammy 
with cold sweat as I staggered away 
up the valley to the distant corn fields 
where I was working. . . . Lose my 
legs, never to walk again? Creep 
along on my weak hands and the ten- 
der stumps of my legs? 

I worked among the rustling yel- 
low corn stalks that afternoon, my 
fellow-workers' heads and squat tor- 
sos hidden among those dying rows; 
I tried to imagine how it would feel 
to be little more than three feet tall, 
and the flesh of my body crawled. 
. . . I shuddered and swung the corn- 
knife viciously, as though it were a 
machete, mowing down the leafy 
clumps of cornstalks about me. 

My eyes ranged along the canyon — 
nine miles long and more than a mile 
in width ; the winding emerald bands 
of willow, cottonwood, aspen and ce- 
dar along the narrow irrigation 
ditches and winding brooks; the up- 
per slopes, terrace upon terrace, thick 



with the dark green ranks of tower- 
ing evergreen forests, and above it 
all the soaring, unscalable sheerness 
of the encircling iron-red walls and 
lofty, lemon-colored crags. 

Further to the north, where a pro- 
jecting wall of rock shouldered out 
into the valley, a narrow canyon — a 
deep cleft into ruined red cliffs totter- 
ing overhead — opened. It was there 
that I had landed beside the rocky 
pool where Inya and the other girls 
of the valley played and swam all 
through the summer. 

And there, where I had concealed 
my D grav unit beneath the weight 
of many flat stones, I decided to go. 

Forgotten now were Inya and our 
plans for the future. Only the blind 
urge to escape from this hellish val- 
ley and the mutilation that awaited 
me was in my mind. I looked about 
the field. 

T HE nearest Nephite was a hun- 
dred yards away, half-hidden 
from me by the intervening rows of 
corn. Quietly then I bent down and 
slipped away through the field toward 
that looming red butte and the escape 
that awaited beyond its walls. 

I left the shelter of the brown- 
leaved stalks several hundred feet 
further along the way, and went 
plunging away across muddy ditches 
and reddish rocky soil toward my 
goal. A thousand feet or more I raced 
ere my flight was discovered; then 
ten or twelve of the workers, un- 
armed save for the heavy corn- 
knives slung between their shoulder 
blades, came racing in long, prodi- 
gious bounds after me. Fast as I 
ran yet their muscular arms carried 
them at a swifter pace and they were 
rapidly overhauling me when I darted 
into the narrow side-canyon. 




120 



COSMIC STORIES 



Some of them swung their long- 
armed bodies forward in mighty 
leaps ; touched their grotesque with- 
ered feet to the ground momentarily, 
and swung forward again ; while oth- 
ers ran as a man runs, their arms 
twinkling swiftly forward along the 
uneven ground. 

They drew closer behind; two of 
them far in advance of the others 
shouted for me to halt at once, but 
I spurted onward faster than before. 
The grassy little glade beside the 
pool lay but a few feet ahead now. 

But despair was in my heart. Be- 
fore I could free the D grav of its 
burden of rocks, adjust the harness, 
and spring into the air, they would 
be upon me. Perhaps I could jerk my 
Z gun from the pack, however, and 
send its paralyzing bolts of electricity 
smashing into them. 

Then I was beside my cache and 
the blood drained from my stricken 
brain for a moment. . . . The D grav 
and all my equipment was gone! 

I turned to face the legless men, 
whipping the corn-knife from its 
sheath along my backbone, and leap- 
ing toward them. Better to go down 
fighting, I thought, than live on a 
crippled torso. 

My first blow sheared through the 
wrist of Dav, fleetest of my pursuers, 
and then I was engaged in a duel 
with the other man. Now at last my 
superior height and ability to move 
about as I willed told in my favor 
and before his fellows could reach his 
side I had slashed down through his 
guard and laid open his shoulder to 
the collar-bone. 

I turned, just in time, and my 
heavy knife sent Dav’s blade — and 
two fingers of his remaining hand — 



spinning. Then I dared a quick glance 
toward the empty cache and swore. 

The D grav tilted upward from a 
sturdy cottonwood branch, the same 
one I had used before, and beneath 
the tree, clutching the mooring rope, 
sat Inya! 

“Inya!” I cried. “You knew?” 

“Yes, Morton,” sobbed the girl. “I 
knew that you would not be willing 
to lose your legs even for me. And I 
love you too much to ask it.” 

I kissed her once, hastily, slashed 
at the mooring line and jumped up- 
ward with all my power. Upward 
shot the D grav, so swiftly that the 
flung knives of my pursuers fell far 
short. Then I was hooking my arms 
through the loops of my harness and 
fighting against the downward surge 
of gravity all the while. 

At last my straps were buckled 
into place and I was drifting slowly 
downward once more out over the 
main valley. I dropped several chunks 
of rock from the ballast sack beside 
me to halt my descent and looked 
back toward the little glade beside 
the pool. 

Inya was there, her eyes fixed 
sadly on me. I waved to her and she 
replied. Then she flung herself prone 
on the soft grass, her shoulders heav- 
ing convulsively as great sobs tore at 
her body. 

My own eyes were not dry as I 
drifted higher and higher into the 
clear dry air above the canyon of 
N’voo. 

Then I was above the weathered 
rimrock and splintered crags that 
hemmed in that fertile oasis, drifting 
slowly aw r ay on a hot breeze toward 
a world where men did not walk on 
their hands. . . , 




»» 



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book is 

9 l /a k 6 Vi 
Inches ; 
bea u t i f u 1 1 y 
printed In 
clear type : 
151 pases with 
Illustrations ; 
HARD COVER; 
cloth binding. 



‘SEX SECRETS of 
LOVE and MARRIAGE 

t Dartngiy ffievecited 

Edited by Dr . Edward Podolsky 

This is an enlightened age. Are you one of those, still 
afraid to know the truth about the many intimate questions 
of man or woman? Or are you one of those who thinks — 
“I know it all'' — and is actually unaware of many important 
facts and pleasures. Do you know how to live a complete, 
vigorous and delightful sex life? Do you know your part 
in the game of love? Every happy marriage is based, to a 
great extent, on a happy sex life. But how can you lead a 
satisfactory love life, if you do not know' — or are not sure, 

of the many, many facts and ways of love, of marriage, of sex — -of the 
1000 ways ol a man with a woman! Are you getting ALL that you 
expected, that you dreamed of — from your love, from your marriage, 
from your sex life? Or are doubts and difficulties in the art of love 
troubling you, holding you back, spoiling everything. 

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explains: How to attract the opposite sex— how to 
win love — how to conduct yourself during your 
honeymoon. The book teaches the proper sexual 
conduct in marriage and the technique of performing 
the sex act. The book explains: the problems of the 
wife and how to solve them — and tne problems of 
the husbands and how to overcome them. Some- 
times they are actual physical disabilities, such as 
impotence, sterility, etc. The book advises you on 
correcting these difficulties. It also devotes a chap- 
ter to “BIRTH CONTROL,” with reasons for and 
against — and the method of accomplishing. - It fea- 
tures a table of “safe periods.” It explains con- 
ception, pregnancy. In short, it is a complete 
teacher and guide on practically every phase of 
Love — Marriage — and SEX! 

“Secrets of Love and Marriage” is an endless 
source of intimate, intriguing information, from the 
first awakening of youthful love to the full flowering 
of grand passion . . . answering many questions you 
hesitate to ask even your closest friends. You must 
know the real facts and ways or be cheated out of 
life’s most precious pleasures! 

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PART OF CONTENTS 



Introduction by 

Ed wa rd Podolsky. M.D. 
foreword by James Parker Hendry 

Need lor sex understanding to aid 
married happiness — txiok offers key 
lo true understanding of sex. 
Chapter t — Married Men Should Know 
Instinct is not enough — the wed- 
ding night— perpetuating the honey- 
moon — functions of organs and 
body In marriage relations — skillful 
wooer can overcome timidities. 
Chapter 2 — Love Problems of Wives 
Why marriages fail — wife often 
frustrated, disappointed — husband 
should improve in sexual relations 
— set routine grows boresome — case 
of the under-sexed wife — how to 
keep love alive. 

Chapter 3 — Scientific Sex Program 
in Marriage 

Marriage based on mutual love 
and co-operation — instructions for 
performing and following marriage 
sex program — chart of sale periods 
— normal froquency of relations. 
Chapter 4— Functions of Sex Organs 
The pm pose of sex-functions of 
the male organs — female organs 
and work — how conception takes 

f lace — secondary stimuli zones — 
ips, thighs, neck — manner of arous- 
ing desire— attaining highest pitch 
In compatibility. 

Chapter S — The Art of Married Love 

The Importance of preparation- 
first act the courtship or love-mak- 
ing — secohd part of tho Coitus — 
many positions possible— final act 
or climax— half hour all too short 
for courtship — develop mutual 
sexual rhythm — reaching a climax 
together— women often unsatisfied 
—problems of physical mismatching 
— overcoming these difficulties. 
Chapter 6 — Secrets of Sex Appeal 
What does a man notice — how to 
dress for charm and appeal— choos- 
ing clothing, attending to com- 
plexion, figure and personality 
Chapter 7— Dangers of Petting 

Is It wise to pet to be popular? 
—Embracing bodies and kissing lip 
dangerous?— yearning desires diffi- 
cult to control. 

Chapter S — Choosing a Mate 

Why childien resemble ancestors 
—importance of selecting proper 
life’s partner — choose a male for 
more than physical reasons. 

Chapter 9 — Birth Control 

A ntoral issue tong debated— ar- 
guments In favor and against limi- 
tation of children— mechanical con- 
nivances against law — various 
methods used— no method ideal. 



Chapter lo — What Is sterilization 

Many misinformed on subject— 
advantage to individual — advantage 
to society — sterilization simplified 
today. 

Chapter 11 — Fertilization 

Why children should he had early 
In marriage — superstitions regard- 
ing pregnancy — how fertilization 
accomplished in sex union — how 
to assure fertilization under normal 
conditions— causes of infertility. 
Chapter 12 — Pregnancy 

Changes following fertilization- 
first indications of pregnancy — ca»o 
of prospective mother — abortions 
and miscarriages — dangers ol preg- 
nancy — preparations for birth — 
pregnancy 280 days approximately. 
Chapter 13 — New Tests for Pregnancy 
Need for prompt diagnosis in 
many cases — how test is made- 
combination tests valuable. 

Chapter 14 — Can Sex of Unborn 
Child be Chosen 
Science investigating various 
theories — no certain methods. 
Chapter IS — Motherhood 

Actual process of childbirth — 
follow doctor’s Instructions — caesar- 
ian operations — puerperal lever- 
summary for prospective mothers. 
Chapter 6 — Methods 
Childbirth 

Select doctor you have 
confidence In — follow his 
tlons — anesthetics which 



of Easy 

complete 

instruc- 

ditninish 



labor pains without injuring Infant. 

Chapter 17— Intimate Questions of 
Husbands 

Overcoming some common sexual 
problems— how to attain "control” — 
importance of prolonged courtship 
—effect of frequency on control — 
overvqming frigidity In wives— If 
husband is Impotent — can Impo- 
tency. be overcome — organic de- 
ficiencies— various faults and their 
remedies. 

Chapter IB— Intimate Questions of 
Wives 

Importance of free discussion 
with husband — avoid haste— be pa- 
tient — strive for perfection — sex a 
mutual matter — abstinence and ex- 
cesses — Intimate women problems. 
Chapter 19 — Feminine Hygiene and 
Beauty 

How to develop your charm and 
sex appeal 

Chapter 20 — Reducing Diets 

How to diet. Complete menu lor 
famous Hollywood 18 day diet. 



HERALD PUBLISHING COMPANY 



26 East 17th St.. 



Dept. AF-3 



New York 




NEW DIRECTIONS 

Juj, 

WcJie/i G, ^bauiei 



A VARIABLE star, for exam- 
ple, is behaving* strangely. 
The observatories of the 
world buzz with speculation between 
the tedious routines of photography, 
computation, and analysis. The di- 
rector of Mount Palomar Station is- 
sues orders: 

“Memorandum to staff : you are 

to elect a maximum of five men to 
carry on the basic work of this ob- 
servatory. All others will concen- 
trate on Variable Callipyge M 5388.” 
Elaborate charts are prepared of 
the star's former rhythm contrasted 
with its new and eccentric periods. 
Spectroscopic tables reveal the anat- 
omy of the star, strangely different 
from what it had been. Finally a 
report to the director: “I think 

we've done all we can, Chief; you 
send the stuff on.” 

And the stuff is sent on — to a man 
whose desk is piled high with abnor- 
malities that crop out in the world's 
course. The medicos, it seems, have 
noticed a peculiar increase in both 
the frequency and violence of the 
common cold. Scores of children in 
North America alone have died in 
spasms of coughing. 

“This,” says the man at the 
crowded desk, “may be it.” He com- 
pares dates and draws a tentative 
conclusion — that certain radiations 
reaching Earth from the Variable 
Callipyge have either inhibited re- 



sistance or promoted the culture of 
the cold virus. He digs into his files 
of two years back and studies a dos- 
sier on di-electrics, the work of a 
young Argentine electronics techni- 
cian. 

Collating the medicos, the astron- 
omers and the physicist, he sketches 
roughly the plans for a device like 
an oxygen tent. It will surround the 
patient with a counter-barrage of 
rays set to negate the wave-lengths 
of the radiations from Callipyge. 

“Schedule for mass-production,” 
he pencils at the bottom of the 
sketch. “Fifteen a day for three 
weeks.” By that time, he estimates, 
the star will have settled down to 
normal. That is a day's work for — 
the Coordinator. 

H E IS a figure that has not yet 
appeared on our horizon, yet 
he seems inevitable. The complexi- 
ties inherent in science demand him. 
Today we find a peculiar sight before 
us — scores of branches of technology 
ever dividing, spreading further 
apart, the jargon of one department 
unintelligible to another. 

There must be a translator — one 
who can take data and set up logical 
conclusions. With his help relations 
unknown to the present day ‘will de- 
velop and even the most abstruse 
research need not wait a decade for 
the times to catch up with it. 



122 




NEW DIRECTIONS 



Perhaps he is the descendant of 
yesterday's “efficiency expert" or the 
“production engineer" of today; cer- 
tainly there must be in his make-up 
the priceless drop of hard-headed 
practicality that transforms talent 
into genius. 

The Coordinator is what we are 
pleased to call a New Direction — a 
different route out of the darkness. 
The problem of today is specializa- 
tion once hailed as the mother of ef- 
ficiency, now recognized as the par- 
ent of confusion as well. 



ITERATURE is the soul of a 
race, perhaps; if so its lan- 
guage must be its life-blood. The 
history of speech, in general, is one 
of consolidation of dialects. In thir- 
teenth century England the North- 
ern and Southern dialects were mu- 
tually unintelligible ; the historical 
process set into operation at that 
time culminated about 1850 in the 
nearly complete acceptance by both 
regions of the Midlands speech, cen- 
tering about London, as the standard 
of language. 

On the larger scale — the consoli- 
dating or supplanting of national 
languages — the difficulties are great- 
er. The New Direction taken by 
some to iron out the mutual resent- 
ment of a “foreigner" is the arti- 
ficial language. 

Perhaps the first of these was Al- 
wato, the invention of an American 
cleric who was responsible also for 
Universology, an indescribable hash 
of science, philosophy, jurisprudence 
and asininity which had a mild vogue 
in the early nineteenth century. In 
1880 Schleyer, a German priest, 
made public his Volapuk, an elabo- 
rately inflected synthesis of the Teu- 
tonic languages drawing its vocabu- 
lary mainly from English. Thus the 



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(Continued On Page 124) 








COSMIC STORIES 




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(Continued From Page 123) 

name of the invention, meaning 
“world speech” is directly carried 
over from our language, but battered 
almost out of recognition. After a 
decade of publicity it settled down 
into cultism and is almost completely 
forgotten today. 

Esperanto, developed later than 
Volapuk and so avoiding most of its 
mistakes, caught on nicely and is 
still booming. Advocated by its en- 
thusiasts as a “second speech” for 
purposes of international communi- 
cation and friendship, it is almost 
automatically resented by the aver- 
age. Charges are brought against it 
that it is “soulless,” “unvital,” etc. 
Nevertheless it is simple and concise 
beyond any natural language; read- 
ing ability can be acquired in a phe- 
nomenally short time. 

Esperanto has not yet gone far 
enough for us to judge, and there 
has been a schism of dissatisfied re- 
visionists who expound Ido, a modi- 
fied form of Esperanto. Perhaps 
there is a flaw at the base of any 
international language, but the clear 
advantages of this speech seem to 
indicate that it may be a New Direc- 
tion out of enmity and war. 

E VERY organism carries * within 
itself the germs of its own de- 
struction — this is as true of a science 
or a generation as of an animal. 
Conflict has been set up, in this case 
between obscurity and intelligibility. 
The strain results in an escape of 
forces into a different channel — a 
New Direction. 



THE END 







THE COSMOSCOPE 



T HE COSMOSCOPE is de- 
signed to serve as the voice 
of the readers. Here will be 

recorded comments and opinions on 
past issues; here will be recorded 
suggestions for future issues. A 
magazine is put out by one or two 
persons, but its success is dependent 
upon the advice of many. No mat- 
ter how much theory or how much 
past experience one may think he 
has, it will never suffice to keep any 
magazine on the plane of quality and 
quantity its readers demand. That 
can only be done when readers do 
their part; when they write in their 
candid opinions of stories, articles, 
departments, art work, and the edi- 
tors, their suggestions as to what 
they would do if they were editor, 
their ideas. 

If there’s something to kick about, 
kick! If there’s something to praise, 
well, we’re human and won’t com- 
plain about a pat on the back. Any- 
way this department is here to re- 
cord the opinion of the impartial 
reader. 

The first issue of any such depart- 
ment is always difficult. No one has 
seen the magazine before, no one 
knows exactly what we are going to 
put out, even the editors never know 
what the magazine will actually look 
like till it’s all off the presses and 
there’s nothing they can do about it. 
Of course they do have some idea, 
but really . . . you never know. Any- 
way, we had to find some way of 
making up this department so we 
sent out notices of our forthcoming 
magazine and asked for letters. We 
turned up quite a lot of hopes, sug- 



gestions, and bold opinions. We asked 
for it. 

The first to reply was Stafford 
Chan of Darien, Conn. We recall him 
vaguely as a fan from years back. 
He says he has just returned from 
Egypt after having been away from 
America for several years. He goes 
on to say: 

‘‘When I left the States, promis- 
ing myself to try to keep in touch 
with the fantastic pulps, there 
were three titles, each appearing 
monthly. Now I find that, of these 
three, little recognizable remains. 
One has become a veritable Eton 
snob; another has added an adjec- 
tive to the title and subtracted 
everything of worth from its con- 
tent; while a third has become so 
utterly nauseating that I cannot 
believe it. As for the new erup- 
tions of magazines of this type, 
little can be said. I am reminded 
of nothing so much as the raucous 
din of the marts and bazaars of 
which tourists make so much. De- 
spite the popular song, I cannot 
say that I care to go out in such a 
midday sun. . . . 

“The general aim of this mass 
of incoherency, however, is to tell 
you that, despite the rather ludi- 
crous titles, I am favorably im- 
pressed with what I hear of your 
new journals, and shall be waiting 
rather anxiously to put them to the 
test. You shall hear from me anon 
in regard to the results. 

“Incidentally (I have run into 
this a number of times, so find it 
worth mentioning here), I might 
add that, having been a veritable 
Cartaphilus for some twenty-five 
years, I would not advise my fel- 
low-enthusiasts to try to calculate 
my pedigree from my manner of 
putting words together. I am not 
a Britisher, Yank, or what have 
you. I’m a mongrel hybrid, what- 



125 




126 



COSMIC STORIES 



chacallit, and but definitely proud 
of it.” 

You worry us a bit, Mr. Chan. 
Could you be a mutant, perhaps? We 
hope you find this magazine coming 
up to your standards. They seem sort 
of odd. You speak of three maga- 
zines, one a snob presumably because 
it aims high, another is nauseating 
because it aims low, the last aims in 
between and has nothing of worth. 
What, then, do you want? 

Next we hear from Ray Garfield 
of St. Louis, Mo.: 

“The issuance of a new science- 
fiction magazine is a delicate busi- 
ness that should be handled with 
much thought. It should not be too 
much like any other magazine on 
the market. It should not be an 
imitation of some other magazine; 
even if that publication is success- 
ful, this is no excuse for copying 
it closely. 

“You should try to keep your 
new mag different and novel. Even 
though there are other stf publi- 
cations, Cosmic Stories should al- 
ways act as if it considered itself 
unique. Try to get new artists; I 
am sure there must be dozens who 
can match the best in other maga- 
zines. Such men as Paul, Wesso, 
Finlay, Schneeman, Brown and 
Krupa are not indispensable; lots 
of new artists without stereotyped 
styles and sets can match these 
men. Newcomers like Bok, Forte, 
Streeter, Ghorp, Dun, Sherry and 
others new in 1940 have shown 
their speed; keep after them and 
new men. 

“I hope you give new writers a 
break. Pm very sick of seeing the 
same old names parading over cov- 
ers and contents pages; men who 
have long since written out their 
sparks of genius and now grind 
out stuff with the monotony and 
lack of originality of a sausage 
machine. New names — new ideas. 
Fll be watching for your first issue 
and hoping it doesn't turn out to 
be a carbon copy of all the rest.” 

We are giving new artists breaks 
as much as we can. But there's some- 



thing you must bear in mind, Mr. 
Garfield. That is, an old artist can 
be relied upon to turn out a compe- 
tent illustration the first time; a new 
artist is always a gamble and a risk. 
We're willing to take a chance and 
you'll note we are using new men 
like Hannes Bok, Roy Hunt and 
David A. Kyle. It's not so easy to 
get good material from new writers 
either. That's why so many old- 
timers keep turning up ; their second 
rate material is often better written 
(if less original) than a newcomer's 
first-rate original stuff. But again 
you’ll notice we are very open to new 
names and not at all fascinated by 
authors' reputations. We welcome 
manuscripts by newcomers. 

Now comes a Tartar! Jack Marcus 
of Brooklyn replies to our request 
for letters with a blast: 

“So you want a few words for 
the first appearance of the first 
letter column in Cosmic Stories ? 
Well, here's those words and I 
hope to Great Klono, they're the 
last words you'll get — “Drop the 
Letter Column!” For years and 
years and years we poor suffering 
readers have had the inane re- 
marks of various assorted cranks, 
rattle-brains and stuffed • shirts 
flung in our faces at the end of 
every science-fiction magazine. 
Most of us have given up reading 
them, it's just so many waste 
pages to us. Who cares what a few 
kids who really want nothing but 
to get their names into print 
think? Is the science accurate? 
They write a long letter to say that 
some poor suffering writer has 
misplaced a decimal point. Is the 
story entertaining? They write in, 
using every adjective in the dic- 
tionary, to say so. Do they approve 
of a cover? They write reams. Do 
they approve of an editor? Oh, but 
yes, yes, yes. Never any disap- 
proval of that ! ‘Our' magazine 
(hah!) has a great editor; the 
stories stink, the art stinks, the 
cover stinks, but the editor? No 



THE COSMOSCOPE 



complaint. Pooey to these letters. 
Out with them ! Dump the letter 
department and you’ll have the 
best magazine of all/’ 

We gather that you mildly dis- 
approve of The Cosmoscope then. 

Seriously, there may be something 
in what you say. We had thought a 
letter department was virtually an 
essential ; in the opening of this one, 
we tell why. We’ll put it up to the 
readers. Is Mr. Marcus right? Shall 
we keep this section or “dump” it? 
Let’s hear more on this. 

Bob Tucker of Bloomington, 111., 
sent us a long letter, ribbing us and 
which we suspect was not for publi- 
cation. However, we have patched 
together items from his missive, and 
though it will probably rile Mr. 
Tucker, here they are: 

“Yahhhh, yourself! I already 
know all about your new maga- 
zine. ... So you’re going to call 
it Cosmic Stories, huh? What a 
hell of a poopy name. If you can’t 
do better than that, you must be 
an outer-circle fan ! How about 
calling the magazine Confounding 
Stories , or Bombastic Talcs, or 
Bugeyed Stories ? I like that last 
one! . . . What the hell, congratu- 
lations are so boring and meaning- 
less! I’ll just say that I am damn 
glad for you! Damn glad! Now 
maybe we can get a pro magazine 
run to suit me! By golly, you had 
better read my story ! Let’s see 
now — I think it would look nice on 
a box down in the left-hand corner 
of your first cover, with of course, 
the selling angle : ‘By Bob Tucker,’ 
in large letters. Just think how 
many copies of that issue will whiz 
off the Bloomington newsstands! I 
got lots of relatives. . . . How 
about some humor? Say a column 
every issue along the lines of 
‘Poor Pong’s Almanac,’ or a bur- 
lesque gossip column. Aw well, 
don’t curl your lip like that, I can 
suggest it, can’t I? ... I hope to 
hell the magazine goes over with 
accent on humor and fantasy ! 
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123 



COSMIC STORIES 



know, as proved by the amazing 
success of Le Zombie ” 

Bugeyed Stories , eh? Well, we'll 

put it this way: You get up a peti- 
tion signed by a million persons 
swearing they will buy faithfully 
every issue of Bugeyed Stories and 
we'll publish it. Meanwhile, we'll 
have to stagger on with our “poopy" 
title. The idea of a humor column 
intrigues us and we might use one 
at that. What do the readers think? 

Sam K. Goldman of Boston, Mass., 
sounds off : 

“I was pleased to read in 
F. F. F. News Weekly that you are 
to edit two new magazines. I hope 
that you try to keep them on a 
high level. Please do not make the 
practice of buying stories just be- 
cause there's a big name attached 
to it. That is a very misleading 
idea on the part of editors. These 
supposedly big writers are really 
only known to a few thousand fans 
and not to the general readers. 
Good art work and good clear 
printing will sell thousands of 
more readers than just big names. 
Most people don't care much who 
writes the stories, it's the appear- 
ance and illustrations that sell the 
magazine. And if your stories are 
good, the magazine will keep on 
selling regardless of how familiar 
the authors' names are. So don't 
get panicked into grabbing up a 
lot of old rejects and hack writing 
that's floating around just because 
there's a big name attached to it." 

The editors have been of the same 
opinion as regards the lure of big 
names, though we aren't so positive 
as you. Time will tell. 

Here comes a sharp note from 
Arthur Henshaw of Columbus, Ohio: 

“I hope to heaven you aren't one 
of those Esperanto nuts that de- 
light in filling up a science-fiction 
mag with addle-pated letters rav- 
ing about their particular brand of 
home-made gibberish. Esperanto 
will no more be the language of 
the future than Nazi German will 



be. Keep your magazine a fiction 
magazine and keep the cranks out 
of it ! And I hope you can manage 
to keep the scientist's daughter, 
the handsome young inventor, and 
the sinister Martian spy outside of 
your pages. And if you start 
editing stories down to kinder- 
garten level, so help me, I'll come 
to New York, if I have to walk all 
the way and strangle you with my 
bare hands !" 

We shall live in terror from now 
on. We’ll let Mr. Henshaw take care 
of the response to his letter. We 
suspect that it’ll be plenty! Lastly 
we hear from Graham Conway of 
Waterloo, Indiana : 

“I would like to see you use more 
short stories and less novels and 
novelets. In the past years there 
has been a steady trend towards 
the alleged “book-length" novel in 
each issue of a magazine. Some- 
times they print these in small 
eye-racking type and expect them 
to be read. Those that I have read, 

I have rarely liked, and aside from 
that, I think they are unfair to the 
reader. 

“With a whole batch of short 
stories, readers are sure to find 
something they'll like a lot. You 
know a good story that can stir up 
the mind to dreaming and think- 
ing for hours is what makes a 
magazine. One good story per 
reader can redeem and sell any 
magazine, and I think your chances 
of having such a story will improve 
with the number of titles in each 
issue and decrease with the num- 
ber of novels an issue. 

“Authors I would like to see are 
Manly Wade Wellman, Robert 
Heinlein, S. D. Gottesman, Jack 
Williamson, David H. Keller, P. 
Schuyler Miller, Harry Walton, and 
Philip M. Fisher. Authors I would 
not like to see are Eando Binder, 
Gordon A. Giles, Dennis Clive, Don 
Wilcox, John Coleridge, Ray Cum- 
mings, and David Wright O'Brien. 

“I prefer stories whose emphasis 
is less on action’ and more on char- 
acter and background. A novel 
twist, clever theme, or a good bit 



THE COSMOSCOPE 

of extra-terrestrial description can 
make a story for me. I dislike in- 
tensely the hackneyed space- 
pirate, interplanetary dog-catcher, 
or Wild West on Mars stuff. 

“One more word : Please use lit- 
erate terminology for the names 
of planet dwellers. Let’s have no 
Mercutians, Venutians, Plutians, 
Jupiterians or Terrestrials run- 
ning around. There are more accu- 
rate terms.” 

In some ways, we tend to follow 
your advice on the number of stories 
an issue. Concerning Mercutians, so 
many writers and not a few editors 
seem to think that because Martian 
is spelled with a T, the rest must be. 
We won’t make that mistake. 

Don’t forget, we want your opin- 
ions on this issue and on any other 
thing you think should interest us. 
So don’t fail to write us that letter. 
Just address it to the Editor, Cosmic 
Stories , 19 East 48th Street, New 
York City. We’ll be seeing you again 
March first ! — DAW. 



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129 




tyantaltf fyan 



COSMIC STORIES will review as many 
as it can of the numerous amateur maga- 
zines put out by fans and fan groups all 
ever the world. We invite fan publishers 
to send us copies regularly as a service 
to our readers. . . . SPACE WAYS (303 
Bryan PI., Hagerstown, Md.) is a neat 26 
page mimeographed magazine considered 
one of the best in the field. The October 
issue features an amount of material on 
the Chicago Convention, principally by 
Bob Tucker and “The Star Treader.” Wal- 
tei Sullivan takes fans behind the scenes 
in New York with notes from his diary. 
. . . THE COMET (Tom Wright, 1140 
Bush Ave., Martinez, Cal.) appears again 
with an excellent 30 page magazine. We 
thought Jack Robins’ article “Some East- 
ern Stf Events” to be quite competent 
and worthwhile. Many other items, a short 
story “Lure of the Flute” by John Reit- 
rol, articles by Harry Warner, James Till- 
man, and Lew Martin, art work by Bok 
and Bronson, make THE COMET out- 
standing. . . . The Solaroid Club (9 Bo- 
gert PI., Westwood, N. J.) publishes SUN 
SPOTS as their official organ. The maga- 
zine is beginning to shape up nicely but 
could stand better mimeographing and 
grammar. Carries a considerable amount 
of fiction and humor by members. Feature 
item is Manly Wade Wellman’s “There 
May be Werewolves.” . . . LE ZOMBIE 
(Box 260, Bloomington, 111.) at once the 
maddest and best liked fan magazine, de- 
votes its November issue to the Chicago 
Convention. Dale Tarr and Bob Tucker do 
the honors. Famed for its short para- 
graphic comments. . . . Los Angeles is 
famous for the variety and off-trail nature 



of its publications. The latest is boldly titled 
THE DAMN THING! (Box 6475, Met. Stat., 
L. A., Cal.) and is edited by the caustic 
T. Bruce Yerke. It has an air of bravado . 
about it we like. Damon Knight tilts lances 
with the “Pro-Science” movement, various 
others lambaste Los Angeles, Ackerman, 
and New Fandom. It lives up to its title 
and we love it. . . . Oldest fan magazine 
in existence is the six year old PHANTA- 
GRAPH (Apt. 7A, 244 W. 74th St., N. Y. C.) 
whose latest issue features Futurian verse, 
articles, and curious fiction by Robert W. 
Lowndes, Dick Wilson, Dale Hart, Leslie 
Perri, John Michel, and others. . . . 

C. F. S. REVIEW is the new organ of the 
Colorado Fantasy Society (1258 Race St., 
Denver) which was formed for the purpose 
of organizing the 1941 Denver Science Fic- 
tion Convention. It carries news and an- 
nouncements on the C. F. S. and the com- 
ing convention. We urge its support. . . . 
From the bottom of the world comes the 
20th issue of FUTURIAN OBSERVER 
(10a Sully St., Randwick, Sydney, Aus- 
tralia) a news magazine which records the 
doings of Australia’s very active little fan 
world. A listing of Antipodean fan maga- 
zines reveals six titles. . . . From war- 
torn Britain appears the last regular fan 
magazine from the embattled British fan 
world. The title is FUTURIAN WAR DI- 
GEST and the dogged publisher is J. M. 
Rosenblum (4, Grange Ter., Chapeltown, 
Leeds 7, England). Its eight pages arc 
mainly filled with news of American and 
British science-fiction and discussion anent 
the war. Announces death of fan Ted 
Wade in the R. A. F. and the call to arms 
of author William F. Temple. 






130 




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